man, you may mean
what you say, b-b-but you have been most infernally abused by the
p-p-people who have put such notions in your head, for there is only one
substantial and abiding g-g-good on earth, and that is money. Money is
power, money is happiness, money is God; get money! get it anywhere! get
it anyhow, but g-g-get it."
Instead of mere resentment for a personal insult, David now felt a tide
of righteous indignation rising in his soul at this scorn and denial of
those eternal principles of truth and duty which he felt to be the very
foundations of the moral universe.
"Sir," said he, with the voice and mien of an apostle, "I perceive that
thou art in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity. Thy money
perish with thee. The God of this world hath blinded thine eyes."
The quack, who now began to take a humorous view of the innocence of the
youth, burst into a boisterous guffaw.
"Well, well," he said in mingled scorn and pity, "reckon you are more to
be pitied than b-b-blamed. Fault of early education! Talk like a
p-p-parrot! What can a young fellow like you know about life, shut up
here in this seven-by-nine valley, like a man in a b-b-barrel looking
out of the b-b-bung-hole?"
Offended and disgusted, the Quaker was about to turn upon his heel; but
he saw in the face of the man's beautiful companion a look which said
plainly as spoken words, "I, too, desire that you should go with us."
This look changed his purpose, and he paused.
"Listen to me now," continued the doctor, observing his irresolution.
"You think you know what life is; but you d-d-don't! Do you know what
g-g-great cities are? Do you know what it is to m-m-mix with crowds of
men, to feel and perhaps to sway their p-p-passions? Do you know what it
is to p-p-possess and to spend that money which you d-d-despise? Do you
know what it is to wear fine clothes, to d-d-drink rare wines, to see
great sights, to go where you want to and to do what you p-p-please?"
"I do not, nor do I wish to. And thee must abandon these follies and
sins, if thee would enter the Kingdom of God," David replied, fixing his
eyes sternly upon the face of the blasphemer.
"God! Ha, ha, ha! Who is He, anyhow? Same old story! Fools that can't
enjoy life, d-d-don't want any one else to! Ever hear 'bout the fox that
got his tail b-b-bit off? Wanted all the rest to have theirs! What the
d-d-deuce are we here in this world for? T-t-tell me that, p-p-parson!"
"To do
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