During a visit to his son Barry, Schlesinger was watching TV with Abby, his younger granddaughter, aged six, and some commentators were talking about how the Wall Street financiers were going to handle their stock market problems in their Yom Kippur prayers, and were speculating on just what the dealers would repent about.
Abby watched this and asked, “Grandad, what is the stock market?”
“Abby, you’re too young to understand. Later.”
“I am not that young; I want to know now.”
“Please, wait a few years – then you will understand better.”
“Grandad, I don’t want to start life poor, like you did, selling second-hand furniture. That’s why I want to know now.”
“All right, already,“ sighed Schlesinger, and muted the TV, and gave Abby his full attention. "It’s like this. You buy two chickens and the two chickens lay eggs. So, next year, you have thirty chickens. These thirty chickens then all lay eggs and these eggs turn into chickens. So you end up having thousands of chickens and you’re well off. You see, this is the stock market. You understand so far, Abby?”
“Yes, Grandad.”
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