[Sketches New and Old by Mark Twain]@TWC D-Link book
Sketches New and Old

CHAPTER VI
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Fourteen-seven-fifty -- eight--two hundred.

Total, say--well, upon my word, the grand total is about two hundred and thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars! Is that possible ?" "Possible! If there's any mistake it's the other way.

Two hundred and fourteen thousand, cash, is my income for this year if I know how to cipher." Then the gentleman got up to go.

It came over me most uncomfortably that maybe I had made my revelations for nothing, besides being flattered into stretching them considerably by the stranger's astonished exclamations.
But no; at the last moment the gentleman handed me a large envelope, and said it contained his advertisement; and that I would find out all about his business in it; and that he would be happy to have my custom--would, in fact, be proud to have the custom of a man of such prodigious income; and that he used to think there were several wealthy men in the city, but when they came to trade with him he discovered that they barely had enough to live on; and that, in truth, it had been such a weary, weary age since he had seen a rich man face to face, and talked to him, and touched him with his hands, that he could hardly refrain from embracing me--in fact, would esteem it a great favor if I would let him embrace me.
This so pleased me that I did not try to resist, but allowed this simple-hearted stranger to throw his arms about me and weep a few tranquilizing tears down the back of my neck.

Then he went his way.
As soon as he was gone I opened his advertisement.


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