Chapter 14 Chapter Fourteen Initial Difficulties

On the very day that the newspapers reported the founding of the large plant joint stock company, a very important event occurred in the city of squeeze, namely: the bank belonging to the largest industrial company in the city of squeeze was robbed.The robbery took place in the morning, minutes after the bank opened.After half an hour the whole town was talking about it.It is said that forty robbers took part in the raid on the bank, traveling in armored cars and armed not only with pistols and rifles but also with machine guns and hand grenades.During the robbery, people said, all the bank's employees were killed, except for an accountant who was hiding in a safe.In the confrontation between the robbers and the police, several policemen were killed, and no one among the robbers was injured except the bandit leader who accidentally injured his ear by an assailant.

Only three dwarfs in the whole town knew nothing of what had happened.They are Don't Know, Blinky, and Kid Goat.They sat in the office early in the morning waiting for people to come and buy stocks.But because somehow no buyer came to the door, they had no way of understanding what had happened.But after a while the big liar ran to the office and told about the shocking robbery. "There's nothing we can do about these bandits now," he said. "Maybe our office will be robbed too!" "That's not what I'm worried about," said Little Blink. "I'm afraid people are going to talk about bank robberies now, and forget about our joint stock company completely. No one will think of buying stocks."

Little Blink's worries were not without reason.All day, no one came to the office.The next day, all the newspapers were full of reports about the bank being robbed.The newspapers refuted the rumor that the robbery had been carried out by forty or fifty robbers.According to reports, there were only two robbers.They entered the bank like ordinary customers, closed the door, threatened the clerks with pistols, ordered them all to lie face down on the floor, and ordered an accountant to open the safe.No sooner had the frightened accountant executed his orders than they emptied the safe of coins into a suitcase they had brought with them.Then they put the accountant in a safe, threatened to shoot him like a dog if he tried to raise the alarm, took their suitcases, and went out into the street.

A female bank clerk, who was lying on the ground like the others, saw this.After she was sure that she was no longer in danger, she reached out to her workbench and pressed the signal button. The policemen who were sitting in the guard room playing "Turn the Bull" as usual heard the alarm signal.Immediately they stopped the game and ran into the street, where they saw the two robbers get into a car and run away.The police immediately got into the police car and chased down the escaped robber.When the robbers saw that the police were chasing them, one of them picked up a pistol and opened fire, trying to puncture the tires of the police car.This he did.One of the front wheels of the police car fired.The car lost control and slammed into a light pole at full speed.As a result of the collision, four policemen broke their noses, and a fifth was thrown out of the car and onto the road, spraining his neck.

This of course didn't help the robbers get away, as two more cars full of police officers joined in the pursuit.The two sides shot at each other.The bandit with a good shot knocked out the two cars too, so the police department used armored cars with machine guns.The robber was finally caught, but to everyone's surprise, the robbed money was not with them at all.The car was searched carefully, but the suitcase containing the money disappeared as if it had melted into the air. The robbers who were taken to the police station vehemently denied their crimes, insisting that they had seen no suitcases, had robbed no banks, and hadn't even thought of robbing them.The police chief asked why they shot at the police car if that was the case.They said they didn't know it was the police who were chasing them. On the contrary, they thought it was robbers who were chasing them.

The Superintendent of Police said it was all quibbles, since it was not so difficult to tell the police from the robbers.The man who shot with the pistol replied that it was almost impossible to distinguish the policemen from the robbers nowadays, because the policemen often work together with the robbers, and some robbers put on police uniforms to make it easier to rob .As a result, for the honest little man, he could not tell who was standing in front of him, whether it was a robber or a policeman. What else the police chief said to the detainees was not disclosed in the newspaper.The newspaper only said that the amount of money that was robbed of the bank was very large, reaching as much as 3.5 million Fielding.The newspaper also said that due to the clashes with the robbers, seven policemen were injured to varying degrees, and a policeman named Xiao Momo tore his pants and lost his helmet in a panic.

It was in the papers, it was on the radio, it was on the TV, it was all about this bank robbery and stuff like that.As for knowing nothing, about spaceships, about large plants, no one even mentions it now.All this has been crowded out of the little runts' memory by events of fresher and more intriguing proportions. Little Blink saw that no one came to the office to buy stocks, and was very depressed. He said that if no one came, their joint stock company would go bankrupt and they would all become beggars. "Yes, it's quite possible," the great liar affirmed. "Not long ago, it was said in the paper that almost every day in our city a joint-stock company goes bankrupt."

"How did they go bankrupt?" Quan Mo asked with interest. "Ah, sometimes a little industrial guy wants to start a profitable business and issues shares to collect money, spends the money, but no one comes to buy the shares. In that case people say his company is bankrupt , or collapse. In fact, of course no one broke. It's just a metaphorical way of saying that the company is dead and doesn't exist anymore—burst like a soap bubble," explained the big liar. "Other times there's a gang of philistines getting together," said Kid. "They printed the stock, sold the money, and ran away with the money. At this time, the company is also said to be bankrupt."

"Because of such liars, we don't trust honest dwarfs here anymore," said Little Blink. "Take us for example: we form a joint stock company to benefit the poor. What do we want to do? We want to get seeds from the moon for the poor, but the poor won't give us money for it. I said, What else is fair?" "Maybe it's because the poor don't have money?" Quan Zhi said his estimate. "If you don't have money, let them do it!" Little Blink snorted contemptuously. "Of course, the poor don't have money, that is to say, they don't have a lot of money. If they have money, they are a poor little bit. But there are a lot of poor people! If every poor person contributes a little money to send us Come on, we'll collect a decent amount of money, and we'll make a pretty good fortune...that is...hey! We're not going to get rich, but we're going to get the seeds of big plants. Do this kind of thing You can't be stingy! Who can it benefit? It can only benefit the poor themselves. If the poor could each grow cucumbers the size of a kid in their garden, or a two-story building Who is benefiting from a watermelon of that size? Me? There are enough factories. What a wealth! Every one of our poor people will become a rich man! That would be beautiful!"

"Go and talk to the poor," continued the great liar. "If you don't tell me, we will understand." "That's right. We don't pay enough attention to advertising," agreed Little Blink. "We've got to advertise if we want to sell our stock." " After this conversation, Little Blink traveled all over the city, arranging to place advertisements in newspapers.These advertisements said that if the little man bought a stock, he could make a lot of money.In addition, Little Blink also negotiated with the advertising company, and the company's artist drew a huge poster and erected it on the largest square.The poster showed Omniscience in a space suit and read in large letters:

if the dwarf buys stocks of large plant companies, They won't feel sorry, They don't spend money in vain, One fielding per share!