[Rhoda Fleming by George Meredith]@TWC D-Link bookRhoda Fleming CHAPTER III 10/16
The first person I saw next was her child, this young gal you call Rhoda; and, thinks I to myself, you might ask me, I'd do anything for ye--that I could, of course." The farmer's eye had lit up, but became overshadowed by the characteristic reservation. "Nobody'd ask you to do more than you could," he remarked, rather coldly. "It'll never be much," sighed Anthony. "Well, the world's nothing, if you come to look at it close," the farmer adopted a similar tone. "What's money!" said Anthony. The farmer immediately resumed his this-worldliness: "Well, it's fine to go about asking us poor devils to answer ye that," he said, and chuckled, conceiving that he had nailed Anthony down to a partial confession of his ownership of some worldly goods. "What do you call having money ?" observed the latter, clearly in the trap.
"Fifty thousand ?" "Whew!" went the farmer, as at a big draught of powerful stuff. "Ten thousand ?" Mr.Fleming took this second gulp almost contemptuously, but still kindly. "Come," quoth Anthony, "ten thousand's not so mean, you know.
You're a gentleman on ten thousand.
So, on five.
I'll tell ye, many a gentleman'd be glad to own it.
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