This is Chapter 27 of The Universal Good Deal, you may want to start at the beginning or go back to Chapter 26.

Most readers will know of Goldner as Flinders' most famous marketing success; however, what is less well known is that prior to the Goldner campaign, Flinders was completely unknown. You will recall that Flinders spent a portion of his youth in prison. After his release he opened an advertising business under the motto It's sour! (a reference to an arcane Martian saying about embracing misfortunes). There was a great stigma among the Martians towards those they termed criminals, and so Flinders' business languished. His only clients were a dog-walking business, a failed local politician, and Stephan Goldner.

Before the invention of his infamous metal, Stephan Goldner was a purveyor of preserved foods. Flinders emphasized in the marketing copy that Goldner's provisions were free from the objectionable gaseous flavor that typically accompanied such canned foods, but most people bought his products because they were shockingly inexpensive.¹

Goldner operated several manufactories in out of the way places with unstable governments so that he could avoid inspection. Nevertheless, he was frequently the subject of minor scandals. This is because the contents of his cans were truly disgusting: parts of animals not proper for the purpose, and other substances,² offal, in some cases, with the dung inside, looking more like horses' than anything else, packed with equally good meat.³ Some of Goldner's cases when opened were a perfect mass of putridity.⁴ His adjutant in the business was his nephew, S S Richie, a boy of about sixteen years of age, who had no experience in preserving,⁵ and who may be considered the villain of the episode.

Goldner was not a villain you see; rather, he was an inventor, seeking nothing less than the transmutation of gold, and this was, obviously, his undoing.

Martian society, in the years before the Aliens arrived, was undergoing many rapid changes, not least of which involved the movement of electrons. For this purpose, it turns out, gold was quite useful. The Martians knew of many conductors, but it seems that gold was one of the very few that did not oxidize and yet was malleable. The result was that the Martians were using infinitesimal bits of gold in a great host of productions, many of which were disposable. Taken together, such uses amounted to a enormous quantity of the mineral. Gold used in this manner, secreted as it was in minuscule fractions and adulterated with large quantities of worthless material, was rarely reclaimed, with the effect that the price of gold was always going up. Goldner sought to make a conductor as good as gold.

As his attention was entirely consumed by inventing, he left the operation of his provision manufactory to S S Richie. Richie sought to maximize profits by every avenue—or he was incompetent, the two being difficult to set apart in the production of food—and there were not a few innocent consumers who died from poisoning. Select committees were convened to inquire into the matter of the scandalous unfitness for human food that was discovered of Goldner's provisions,⁶ and their importation and sale were soon widely banned.

Richie came to Goldner quite frantic. 'We are doomed!' he cried.

But Goldner showed him a beatific smile, and waved a thin rod of gold before Richie. 'Be rich!'⁷ he said. 'Do you know what this is?'

'It looks like gold,' said Richie.

'It looks like gold, but it is not, not at all.⁸ This here is entirely synthetic! It looks like gold, it feels like gold, it conducts like gold! But it's made cheaply! We're going to be rich!'

Goldner contacted Flinders, who had been laboring under the unfortunate task of trying to lessen the harm of Richie's maladministration, and told him that he had a magnificent new product.

'I want a whole advertising campaign for this!' he shouted. 'I'm already retooling the factories, we aren't selling cat food any more!'

'An old man named Jensen told me never to sell a thing until it was bought,' Flinders responded. 'Let's wait a while before we try to advertise it.'

Goldner converted all his manufactories to the production of the stuff, and even entered into several contracts to supply large quantities of it. The production went smoothly and there were soon great piles awaiting shipment. But then, only days before Goldner was to fulfill his first order, he made an unpleasant discovery. Richie got his morning toast stuck in the toaster in the break room. He was trying to fish it out using the original little rod, which was kept around for sentimental purposes. Goldner saw him and shouted, 'Stop!'

'What?' Richie said, looking up in exasperation.

'You'll electrocute yourself if you stick that in there.'

'It's never hurt me before,' said Richie. 'I do it all the time.'

It seems that in the clutter of his workshop, Goldner had mistakenly tested a real piece of gold for conductivity, and not his synthetic gold. The rod, like all his new product was significantly less conductive than gold, almost not conductive at all. It was exactly like gold except that it was even less useful.

Goldner's first thought was only that it needed tweaking. He informed his customers that there would be some slight delay, but that he would undertake to deliver the whole quantities required within three weeks.⁹ Goldner locked himself in his laboratory, refusing food or drink, but with no success. As the new deadline drew near he once again informed his customers of a delay, this time pleading that he had very little control over his workmen, and that he was scarcely master of his own establishment.¹⁰ At this, one irate customer told Goldner that he had never yet been played, and he intended that he never would be.¹¹ He threatened to sue for breach of contract. Several of his customers initiated legal actions, as well.

Goldner had therefore now only to admit that he was a ruined man.¹² As a part of wrapping up his affairs, he called Flinders to inform him that his services were no longer required. After Goldner explained the situation, Flinders asked him how much he had been charging for the product. Goldner told him.

'I think the only problem here,' said Flinders, 'is that you aren't charging enough for it. What you want to do is charge more than your competition. Look up the price per ounce for gold, sell yours for fifteen percent more, and leave the rest to me.'

Recognizing that its uselessness was its best feature, Flinders advertised it as a metal even more precious than gold. He gave it the tagline of 'more golden than gold.'¹³ And of course he called it Goldner. It was immensely popular.

It is apparent that the great profits made by the substance did not proceed from the substance itself, but from Flinders, and his genius.¹⁴ Goldner fancied it good luck, Flinders knew better. Richie, that evil nephew, filed a patent for the substance before his uncle, set up his own manufactory, and sued his uncle, forcing him to stop producing Goldner. And so, there remained nothing for Goldner but extreme poverty, to which he saw himself at last reduced.¹⁵ It is said that Goldner died penniless. Woe to those who try to overcome nature and make metals more than perfect by a new arrangement or work sprung from their own senseless brains,¹⁶ as the old Martian adage goes. But that is all I know of Goldner.

Because of the duplicitous nephew, Flinders' profits from the venture were minimal, but as with most of his misfortune, it turned out well. The lesson Flinders learned from this episode, and the lesson he endeavored to pass on to Welles when he met her the day the Aliens arrived, was that only confidence matters in the monetary realm. It was something he was quite vocal about, and indeed he even became known as the Confidence Man.