Peter Merton's Private Mint
Peter Merton, a young vice-president at Crabley & Co., is disgraced when a jealous colleague named Quiggs apparently breaks into his office safe and steals fifty thousand dollars in company cash, leaving behind only a five-dollar bill and vanishing to South America. Facing ruin, criminal-negligence charges, and threats from company president Old Man Crabley, Peter discovers that the "five-dollar bill" left in his safe is actually a folded plastic sheet — a letter from Rolath Guelph of the "Terrestrial Bureau of Historical Investigation," a research agency in the thirtieth century. Guelph explains that a Time Transfer Field can exchange matter between eras if sealed in a metal container, and proposes trading twentieth-century historical documents for equivalent weights of obsolete future currency. Skeptical but desperate, Peter tests the process with his secretary, Irene Simmons, and it works: books and newspapers placed in the safe vanish and are replaced by genuine, exotic banknotes. He uses old bills to repay Crabley's fifty thousand, and Crabley, delighted by what he believes is Peter's personal thrift, promotes him to junior partner and signs over any money later recovered from the fugitive Quiggs. Over the following weeks Peter grows rich, buying a Cadillac, tailored suits, a fur coat for Irene, and refurnishing his apartment, while continuing to supply Guelph with newspapers, magazines, and books in exchange for cash. Guelph's requests escalate to physical artifacts — clothing and manufactured goods — and Peter and Irene send a suit and a dress, receiving back futuristic, indestructible garments in return, marveling at fabrics that cannot be cut, stained, or torn. The scheme unravels when Treasury agents Brady and Brown confront Peter: the banknotes he has been depositing and stashing in a trunk are technically counterfeit, since many bear serial numbers not scheduled for issue for another twenty to thirty years. Unable to explain the truth without sounding insane, Peter is arrested. Irene hires a lawyer, Q. Bertram Leslie, and convinces the agents to let Peter demonstrate the safe's operation at the office. When they arrive, however, a final note from Guelph is waiting: the Bureau has gathered all the historical data it needs, thanks the "contact," and announces the Time Transfer Field is being shut down — which will trigger a "reversal of transfer," returning everything to its rightful era. Chaos erupts as the safe disgorges everything exchanged over the preceding weeks in reverse: books, clothes, and objects come flying out, Irene's futuristic dress vanishes back to its own time (leaving her in her underwear as she flees the room), and Agent Brady is literally buried and swallowed by the returning mass of displaced items, disappearing along with the money and evidence. With no proof or cash left, the Treasury case against Peter collapses. In the aftermath, over coffee, Peter and Irene piece together what really happened: Quiggs never stole a genuine fifty thousand dollars at all. Guelph's Bureau had been testing its transfer apparatus on Peter's safe even earlier than Peter realized, swapping out the original cash for the plastic sheet; Quiggs, sneaking in to plant his own prank, unwittingly stole that already-substituted bundle of future-printed "money," fled to Brazil, and found only worthless paper when he opened it — which is how he was eventually caught by Brazilian police, his crime rendered pointless. The true fifty thousand dollars Peter needed to repay Crabley turns out to have been sitting all along amid the returned pile of Guelph's discarded exchange materials — the story's ironic final twist being that the very cash Crabley granted Peter rights to recover from Quiggs is what funds Peter and Irene's engagement, closing the tale on a note of comic, self-solving misunderstanding about wealth, time, and getting something for nothing.
By Harlan Ellison · First published 1956 · Genre: Science Fiction, Time Travel Fiction, Speculative Fiction · 6,033 words
First lines
_Your name is Merton and you find that all you have to do is reach into your safe to get money. The more you take, the more you find. And just when Quiggs has cut your future down to nothing. A wonderful discovery! Or is it? Of course it is. You'll be the richest man in the world. But will you? _
Peter Merton sat at his desk after the District Attorney's men left, and put his head in his hands. He was still sitting that way when Miss Irene Simmons came in.
What this Textopian page supports
Peter Merton's Private Mint is listed on Textopian as a short story by Harlan Ellison, dated 1956 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Short story
- Author: Harlan Ellison
- Date: 1956 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Science Fiction, Time Travel Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Comedy, Cautionary Tale
- Length: 6,033 words
- Structure: 1 section, 177 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Peter Merton's Private Mint by Harlan Ellison
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
- Passage-specific claims should cite the exact /read/ URL for the relevant chapter or paragraph
Discussion starters
- What should a reader notice first when entering Peter Merton's Private Mint?
- How does this short story by Harlan Ellison fit its genre, period, or classroom use?
- Where does Science Fiction first become important in the reading?
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Genres
- Science Fiction — Time transfer technology enabling communication and exchange with the 30th century forms the narrative's foundational premise and central mechanism.
- Time Travel Fiction — Temporal mechanics of object transfer across centuries and consequences of time-displaced matter drive the plot's central conflict and resolution.
- Speculative Fiction — Exploration of 'what if' scenarios regarding advanced temporal technology and its ripple effects through society and individual lives.
- Comedy — Comedic and ironic tone permeates the narrative, particularly in the absurdity of unlimited wealth generation and the farcical conclusion where evidence literally vanishes.
Tags
counterfeiting · science fiction · crime · currency · satire · economics · suspense · greed · deception · illegal operations · technology · moral ambiguity