There is no friendship in trade.

Host: The harbor was veiled in fog, thick and low, swallowing the sound of the ships’ horns into a deep, ghostly hum. The air was sharp with the scent of salt, iron, and coal smoke. Far down the wharf, cranes groaned, and the faint clatter of chains echoed like old debts being tallied by invisible hands.

Host: Jack stood near the edge, his coat buttoned tight against the chill. The sea wind pulled at his hair and carried with it the smell of something ancient — ambition, perhaps. Jeeny joined him moments later, her footsteps soft on the worn planks. In her hand, she carried a single folded letter — yellowed, water-stained, and bearing the name of a man whose words had built empires.

Host: She opened it and read aloud, her voice steady against the murmuring sea.

“There is no friendship in trade.”
— Cornelius Vanderbilt

Jeeny: “It sounds brutal,” she said quietly. “But I suppose that’s what truth always sounds like when you strip the poetry out of it.”

Jack: “It’s not brutal,” he replied. “It’s accurate.”

Jeeny: “Accurate doesn’t mean right.”

Jack: “In business, it does.”

Host: The fog thickened, softening the world into shapes and shadows. The lights of the dock shimmered faintly, distorted in the mist, like distant promises.

Jeeny: “You really believe that? That commerce and friendship can’t coexist?”

Jack: “Not for long,” he said. “Not when profit’s the priest everyone bows to. The moment money’s involved, loyalty becomes a currency too — and currencies fluctuate.”

Jeeny: “Maybe you’ve been around the wrong kind of people.”

Jack: “Maybe I’ve just learned the right kind of lesson.”

Host: A ship’s horn bellowed through the fog, long and mournful, a sound like a closing deal.

Jeeny: “You sound like Vanderbilt himself — pragmatic to the point of loneliness.”

Jack: “He built an empire, didn’t he? He understood that friendship and business run on opposite laws. Friendship requires generosity. Trade demands self-interest. Try mixing the two, and you end up with betrayal wrapped in courtesy.”

Jeeny: “Or loyalty disguised as failure.”

Jack: “Explain.”

Jeeny: “Sometimes people refuse to profit off those they care about — and it makes them look weak. But it’s not weakness, Jack. It’s restraint. It’s choosing principle over gain.”

Jack: “Principle doesn’t pay wages.”

Jeeny: “No, but it preserves something rarer — trust.”

Host: The wind shifted, scattering a few scraps of paper across the dock. One landed near Jeeny’s feet — an old invoice, numbers smudged by moisture, ink running like memory. She picked it up absently, her eyes distant.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why trade feels so empty. It builds towers, not relationships. It fills coffers but drains the heart. Vanderbilt made fortunes, yes — but he also made ghosts.”

Jack: “Ghosts don’t build railroads.”

Jeeny: “No. But they ride them.”

Host: Her words hung in the air — strange, haunting, half-metaphor and half-accusation. Jack turned toward her then, his eyes sharp, reflective like the dark water below.

Jack: “You think friendship belongs in trade?”

Jeeny: “I think humanity belongs everywhere.”

Jack: “That’s a nice sentiment for a world that runs on contracts.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the world needs fewer contracts.”

Jack: “And more what? Promises? You’d sink every company with that idealism.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But I’d rather sink with decency than float with deceit.”

Host: A small silence fell, carried only by the creak of ropes and the distant splash of the tide. The fog swirled around them like a curtain, folding the two of them into a private stage where morality and realism met in uneasy truce.

Jack: “You talk like trade is soulless. But it’s what moves the world. It builds cities, feeds people, gives life direction.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. People move the world — and trade moves them apart.”

Jack: “Without trade, there’s no progress.”

Jeeny: “Without friendship, there’s no point.”

Host: The waves struck the pilings below, slow and rhythmic, as if applauding their quiet war of ideals.

Jack: “You think you can keep both — profit and principle, ambition and affection. But history doesn’t remember those people. It remembers the ones who won.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. It remembers the ones who mattered.”

Jack: “You think Vanderbilt cared about that?”

Jeeny: “I think he cared — once. Before wealth made him mistake power for permanence.”

Host: Her voice trembled just slightly then — not with fear, but with the kind of conviction that comes from sorrow. Jack said nothing. The fog around them began to lift, revealing the faint glow of dawn spreading across the horizon.

Jeeny: “You know, there’s a strange poetry to it,” she said softly. “Trade builds nations but breaks hearts. It gives us everything except connection. And maybe that’s what Vanderbilt was really admitting — not pride, but loss.”

Jack: “Loss?”

Jeeny: “Yes. He wasn’t boasting that there’s no friendship in trade. He was mourning it.”

Jack: “That’s wishful thinking.”

Jeeny: “It’s human thinking.”

Host: The first rays of the sun cut through the mist, turning the ocean silver. The ships in the harbor became visible again, their outlines strong and purposeful. The world, once blurred, came sharply back into focus.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right,” he said finally. “Maybe even the ruthless understand what they’ve sacrificed. But maybe they also know the world doesn’t reward sentiment.”

Jeeny: “No,” she said. “But it remembers it.”

Jack: “And what’s that worth?”

Jeeny: “Everything — if you’re lucky enough to have a friend left to remember you.”

Host: The light grew stronger now, spilling across the wharf, banishing what remained of the fog. The day began again — the business of men and money, trade and transaction — but something softer lingered between them, something neither profit nor philosophy could measure.

Host: And as they stood together in that thin dawn light, Cornelius Vanderbilt’s words echoed back — stripped of arrogance, heavy with truth:

“There is no friendship in trade.”

Host: Because the economy of the heart is not built on exchange.
Its riches lie in what can never be bought —
in the fragile, priceless grace of giving without gain,
and standing beside another soul, even when the world demands you sell it.