The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

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imself, who had sent them to Sellers; the bread was from corn which could be grown in only one favored locality in the earth and only a favored few could get it; the Rio coffee, which at first seemed execrable to the taste, took to itself an improved flavor when Washington was told to drink it slowly and not hurry what should be a

influencing his dreams. Fatigue had made him sleep late; when he entered the sitting room he noticed that the old hair-cloth sofa was absent; when he sat down to breakfast the Colonel tossed six or seven dollars in bills on the table, counted them over, said he was a little s

, Washington, all in good time. You'll see. Now there's an operation in corn that looks well. Some New York men are trying to get me to go into it-buy up all the growing crops and just boss the market when they mature-ah, I tell you it's a great thing. And it only costs a trifle; two millions or two and a half will do it. I haven't exactly promised yet-there's no hurry-the more indifferent I seem, you know, the more anxious those fellows will get. And then there is the hog speculation-that's bigger still. We've got quiet men at work," [he was very impressive here,] "mousing around, to get propositions out of all the farmers in the whole west and northwest for the hog crop, and other agents quie

such prodigious chances lying right here in sight! Oh, it is a fearful thing to be poor. But don't throw away those things-they are so splendid and I can see how sure they are. Don't throw them away for something still better and ma

ures, and he leaned over the table with the air of a man who

e well enough to while away an idle hour with, or furnish a bit of employment that will give a trifle of idle capital a chance to earn its bread while it is waiting for something to do, bu

s impatiently, and his glowing eyes

s of these banks are at all sorts of discount now-average discount of the hundred and thirteen is forty-four per cent-buy them all up, you see, and then all of a sudden let the cat out of the bag! Whiz! the stock of every one of those wildcats would spin up to a tremendous premium before you cou

ally got his b

day? And I-it's of no use-they simply lie before my face and mock me. There is not

rry. I'll fix you. There's plenty of

could not keep from blushing when he had to conf

eyes-a kind of decoction nine-tenths water and the other tenth drugs that don't cost more than a dollar a barrel; I'm still experimenting; there's one ingredient wanted yet to perfect the thing, and somehow I can't just manage to hit upon the thing that's necessary, and I don't dare talk with a chemist, of cour

nd bottles; profit clear of all expenses, twenty thousand dollars at the very lowest calculation. All the capital needed is to manufacture the first two thousand bottles-say a hundred and fifty dollars-then the money would begin to flow in. The se

shington. "Let's comme

ast $350,000-and then it would begin to be time to tur

! Ain't $350,000 a y

y time and abilities into a patent medicine, it's a patent medicine whose field of operations is the solid earth! its clients the swarming nations that inhabit it! Why what is the republic of America for an eye-water country? Lord bless you, it is nothing but a barren highway that you've got to cross to get to the true eye-water market! Why, Washington, in the Oriental countries people swarm like the sands of the desert; every square mile of ground upholds its thousands upon thousands of struggling human creatures-and every separate and ind

s. However, little by little the Sellers family cooled down and crystalized into shape, and the poor room lost its glitter and resumed its poverty. Then the youth found his voice and begged Sellers to drop everything and hurry up the eye-water; and he got his eighteen dollars and tried to force it upon the Colonel-pleaded with him to take it-implored him to do it. But the Colonel would no

loyment he had found for him, but Washington begged for a few moments in which to write home; with his kind of people, to ride to-day's new interest to death and put off yesterday's till another time, is nature itself. He ran up stairs and wrote glowingly, enthusiastically, to h

ther cautiously-you understand the need of that-break it to him cautiously, for he has had such cruel hard fortune, and is so stricken by it that great good news might prostrate him more surely than even bad, for he is used to the bad but is grown sadly unaccustomed to the other. Tell Laura-tell all the children. And write

tents which conveyed a deal of love to them but not much idea of his prospects or projects. And he never dreamed that such a joyful letter could sadden

outh's dreams forsook the magic eye-water and flew back to the Tennessee Land. And the gorgeous possibilities of that great domain straightway began to occupy his imagination to such a degree that he

d get forty dollars a month and be boarded and lodged in the General's family-which was as good as ten dollars more; and even better, for he co

e was about fifty years old, dignified, well preserved and well dressed. After the Colonel took his leave, the General talked a while with Washington-his talk consisting chiefly of instructions about the clerical duties of the place. He seemed satisfied as to Washington's ability to take care of the books, he was evidently a pretty fair theoretica