- [Henry is complaing about how hard it is to get a cab in New York]
- Feinberg: You're just like my wife, mister. You don't understand the economics of the situation.
- Henry Tyroon: Then teach me. I'm interested in the economics of about every situation.
- Feinberg: Well, there are 11,000 cabs in the city - and no new permits for the next twenty-five years. Now suppose you wanna buy a cab and start hackin'... you gotta get a new permit, too. Now the tab on a new permit is eighteen thousand five hundred on the open market.
- Henry Tyroon: And how much did your cab cost, Mister
- [looks at driver's ID]
- Henry Tyroon: Feinberg?
- Feinberg: Thirty-three hundred... new.
- Henry Tyroon: Mm-hmm. Then that makes your investment, uh, with the permit, come to about $22,000.
- Feinberg: Yeah. But don't tell my wife... she'll think I'm rich.
- Henry Tyroon: Mm-hmm. Mr. Feinberg, I'll give you $24,000 for your cab and permit.
- Feinberg: You wanna buy the cab?
- Henry Tyroon: Right. But you come along with it. I'll need your services for a week, maybe two.
- Feinberg: No, look, mister, I can't sell the cab. I need it.
- Henry Tyroon: Well, I figured that. So, when I leave I'll sell it back to you for... $22,000.
- Feinberg: You wanna lose two grand just to keep your feet dry when it starts to rain?
- Henry Tyroon: I don't lose, Mr. Feinberg. See, I borrow the money and then I get a deduction on the loan interest and another on the depreciation and another on the loss when I sell it back to you. And you make a nice profit.
- Feinberg: You win and I win. Uh-uh, there's gotta be a loser somewhere.
- Henry Tyroon: Taxman loses. He usually does on a Henry Tyroon deal.
- Feinberg: Mister, you've just got yourself a taxi.
- Henry Tyroon: You don't go wheelin' 'n' dealin' for money. You do it for fun. Money's just the way you keep score.
- Molly Thatcher: I don't understand. How can you buy something when you don't even know what it is?
- Ray J. Fox: Well, you see, ma'am, Henry here is a real wheeler dealer. And a wheeler dealer is somebody that loves to find places for money to go. It's like hitchin' on to a star. You may zoom up to the sky on a mighty pretty ride.
- Molly Thatcher: And if the star falls?
- Henry Tyroon: Well, then I find some way for the, uh, government to take three-quarters of the loss.
- Jay R. Spinelby: You see, Miss Thatcher, that's the mark of a REAL wheeler dealer.
- [they have discovered that Universal Widgets has no factory, but Molly is still supposed to sell their stock and Henry says he'll help her]
- Molly Thatcher: Henry, you're an operator; but do you know anything about the stock market?
- Henry Tyroon: Well, I know the stock market is money and emotion. There's hope when you start out, greed on the way up, fear on the way down. I know that, uh, the stock market is people... and if there's anything you can't sell people, I've yet to find out what it is. These people need a reason to buy. The beauty of it is: the reason doesn't have to make sense.
- Molly Thatcher: You're not thinking of anything illegal are you?
- Henry Tyroon: I'm never illegal. I'm just close to it.
- [Henry's latest oilwell has come in a "duster"]
- Billy Joe: Well, you can't sell dust, Henry. So you better hightail it up to the big city and get yourself some shoppin' money quick. Yes.
- Henry Tyroon: Billy Joe, is money all you ever think about?
- Billy Joe: Henry, I am an accountant. I'm supposed to think about money. So you go on up north and raise one million two startin' right now, or you're broke. Yes. Henry, you're a rich man... and a rich man can't afford to go broke.
- Molly Thatcher: Now, why do you suppose Mr. Bear wants me to fight off a large Texan?
- Eloise Cott: You think he's got more than business on his mind?
- Molly Thatcher: Every man has sex on the brain, like it's some sort of wonder drug... a cure-all for everything: colds, pleurisy, arthritis. I even had a guy once tell me that sex prevents cavities.
- Eloise Cott: Cavities? In your teeth?
- Molly Thatcher: Sure. When you're tense, you have more acids in your mouth; and acids eat enamel. When you get rid of the tension, you get rid of the acids. And the best way to get rid of tension...
- Eloise Cott: Don't tell me! let me guess.
- Leonard Nardo: I can't believe it... Molly with a half-educated, sun-dried prairie marshal.
- Stanislas: You've been tuned in to the wrong wavelength, Nardo.
- Leonard Nardo: Meaning what?
- Stanislas: Underneath all that cowboy jazz, the oversize hat, and the boot bit, he's strictly a Yale-type from Boston.
- Leonard Nardo: [slightly incredulous] Boston? He's not from Texas?
- Stanislas: Look, man, long ago, he figured the best way to rub up against money was to be a Texan. Now he's been there so long, he's caught the accent.
- Molly Thatcher: Why that phony was born and bred in Boston. He went to Yale!
- Eloise Cott: Nobody's perfect.
- Stanislas: Look man, if you're going to walk on my canvas, the least you can do is put a little crimson on your soles.
- Molly Thatcher: Oh, isn't it amazing how I sparkle so early in the morning?
- Eloise Cott: Why bother sparkling? When a girl sparkles down on Wall Street, she's a threat. When she sparkles uptown - in *my* territory - she's a promise.
- Molly Thatcher: Leonard's a pastime, not a project. It's comfortable to have him around. He helps me ward off the grabbers.
- Whitby: Great Eastern Offshore Oil, cost 14 dollars a share... six-cent bid.
- Bullard Bear: [slightly incredulous] You mean we haven't unloaded *that* yet?
- Whitby: Well, it takes a while to unload the real dogs, Bullard.
- Bullard Bear: My boy, somewhere in that vast, verdant ever-growing nation of ours must be people stupid enough to buy Great Eastern Offshore Oil. Find them.
- Whitby: Here's another real dog, Bullard... Universal widget. Doesn't say when Osgood bought it. Doesn't say for how much. We've had it for a long time. I - I can't seem to find out anything about it.
- Bullard Bear: Well, write it up in our next stock letter. Point out that industry is growing increasingly widget-conscious.
- Whitby: What is a widget, Bullard?
- Bullard Bear: I don't know. Ask industry!
- Eloise Cott: Say, where are you and this "cowboy" gonna chow down?
- Molly Thatcher: I don't know. Someplace where he can't put his boots on the table and order a burnt steak.
- Eloise Cott: Try "Le Cochon Très Cher." It is so swank, you're not even allowed to use your teeth. You just gum the food.
- Molly Thatcher: That's about the best idea you've had all day.
- Ray J. Fox: [to Giuseppe, the headwaiter, as he, Jay Ray, and J.R. come barging into the fancy French restaurant] Now, get off the road, little puppy, and let us big dogs roll.
- Stanislas: [giving Henry an art investment tip] Let me lay this on you. The coming field... is German Expressionists.
- Henry Tyroon: [Explaining to Jay Ray, Ray Jay, and J.R., his reason for buying a large batch of expressionist paintings as an investment] Boys, did you ever hear of a fella named Renoir? Of course you have. Once upon a time, this fella Renoir, he painted pictures. And he couldn't sell them to save his life. He gave them away for his supper. Sold some for 50 cents. Why? That's 'cause they was all kind of fuzzy. And people laughed. People weren't ready for fuzzy pictures. Do you know what one of those fuzzy old Renoirs will bring today? Mm-hmm. One million dollars. Now, I know. You're gonna say that these pictures don't look fuzzy. They look scratchy. Well, I may be wrong, but when people get ready for scratchy pictures, these are gonna go up, right through the ceiling.
- Thaddeus Whipple: Young lady, I don't know why you're up here fussing about our stock. We Whipples control it anyway. We haven't made a widget since 1854. Any fool knows that. Flying clippers went out years ago.
- Molly Thatcher: But you must make something?
- Thaddeus Whipple: Why?
- Henry Tyroon: Well, it seems to me, if you don't make something, you've got no call to stay in business.
- Thaddeus Whipple: I'm a busy man, and I'd like this to be the last word on the subject. Our company owns just two things: that bog out there and some stock we bought. Only thing that keeps us from dissolving the corporation is my brother Lemuel says we'd have to pay a tax on the stock.
- Molly Thatcher: I don't understand.
- Henry Tyroon: Well, what Mr. Whipple is saying is that when they went out of widget production, they took whatever was left in the treasury and invested it in another stock. And that's where it is now.
- Thaddeus Whipple: That's right. We bought American Telephone and Telegraph just before the war.
- Henry Tyroon: Back in the '30s?
- Thaddeus Whipple: The day before they sank the "Lusitania".
- Henry Tyroon: [incredulous] You bought AT&T in 1915?
- Molly Thatcher: You have a fortune in hidden assets!
- Thaddeus Whipple: Young lady, don't you fuss with our stock. It's selling now just about the way it ought to. Uh, you'd better go on home and get yourself a husband... and a cookbook.
- Bullard Bear: Miss Thatcher, I've been wanting to talk to you for some time, like a father to a daughter. I've been watching what's been happening to you. You've grown hard. That tender, lovely look you used to have in your eyes is gone. Now they glint. No, I have to come right out and say it. This crass commercial world has coarsened you.
- Molly Thatcher: What do you mean?
- Bullard Bear: No, Miss Thatcher, I wouldn't want it on my conscience that I took a lovely young girl and let her work transform her into a heartless, grasping dealer in the marketplace. I, I can't just bear sitting by and watching while I see all that is wonderful and tender in you wrung out and cast aside... You can clean out your desk.
- Hector Vanson: [looking out an office window to the city street below] Investors! That street is full of investors! Look at them down there, boss. Money, money, money... That's all they want.
- Vanson's Boss: Relax, Vanson.
- Hector Vanson: Relax? How can I relax? I double-checked the Consolidated Silicon stock transfer. It's all perfectly legal, boss. The company's in the clear.
- Vanson's Boss: Be patient. Something outrageous is bound to come along.
- Hector Vanson: We haven't had a really good victim since we smashed Zircon Aviation Products.
- Vanson's Boss: Too bad you weren't around for the crash of '29. It was heaven.
- Molly Thatcher: [angrily] Do you remember the first time I told you about Henry Tyroon? I said he was a three dollar bill if I ever saw one.
- Eloise Cott: Then you went through a period of inflation.
- [the judge is reading the long list of charges brought against Henry Tyroon et al]
- Judge: Mr. Vanson, this indictment seems to be a little enthusiastic!
- Hector Vanson: Well, they're a pretty slippery bunch, your honor. I had to throw the book at 'em.
- [in his office, Bear is telling Whitby to fire Molly to save money - she gets up from her desk]
- Bullard Bear: Where is she going?
- Whitby: Her lunch club, I think.
- Bullard Bear: Women shouldn't be allowed to have lunch clubs. We gotta keep 'em off-balance, disorganized, clawing and scratching at each other. Otherwise they might turn on us like mad dogs!
- Whitby: We're still in the red while everyone else is cleaning up.
- Bullard Bear: Economy... that's the answer. We've just got to trim off some of the fat. No more long-distance phone calls. Tell your pals at the club to pick up some luncheon checks. Last man out at night has to make sure that he turns out all the lights. Cancel the linen service. We'll get paper towels... You know, the kind that come out one sheet at a time. Tell the men to blot, not rub.
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