"Things that really matter
Are the things that gold can't buy"

Alternate chorus from Irving Berlin's Let's have another cup o' coffee, quoted at the beginning and the end of this episode.

Now for a bit more pleasant, albeit maybe slightly maudlin, RMT episode.

A retired college professor in his seventies is sitting on a porch, pleasantly reminiscing with his wife of 47 years. "I could have been a millionaire, a billionaire, a...trillionaire" he says, as she chuckles at his memories.

He recalls his earlier days several years ago at the turn of the century when, stopping by a club frequented by other professors, he meets a mysterious professor of metaphysics who advises him of a new company called "General Engines" which makes "horseless carriages" that will be a tremendous investment for some lucky shareholder.

Skeptical, the other professor (and hero of the story) returns home to his wife, who's just come into a $1,000 inheritance. She stuns her husband by saying that her brother-in-law has advised her to invest in a company called "General Engines" which will make "horseless carriages". (No, her brother's not the prof of metaphysics.)

The professor is further baffled when, each time he fires up his pipe (his tobacco bag has the same initials on it as the other professor had) his memory plays strange tricks on him. He thinks things have happened that haven't yet, or he'll think things haven't happened that already have. In addition, he meets the other professor again later at the same club, who advises him to buy stocks in electric companies, another emerging industry...

This is a sweet little program (except for the fate of the metaphysics prof) that sounds as if it could have been a Jimmy Stewart movie along the lines of a non-holiday "It's a wonderful life." 