FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72  
73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   >>   >|  
in their dollar and a quarter a week; eleven hundred and fifty a week for us to handle, and the amount growing every month." "That's a pretty good start," commented J. Rufus, considering the matter carefully as he eyed the stream of ascending bubbles in his hollow-stemmed glass. "No matter what business you're in, if you have a package of clean, new, fresh dollars every week to handle, some of it is bound to settle to the bottom; but there mustn't be too many to swallow the settlings." "Six of us on the inside," mused the other. "Doc Turner, who sells real estate only to people who can't pay for it; Ebenezer Squinch, a lawyer that makes a specialty of widows and orphans and damage claims; Tom Fester, who runs the nicest little chattel-mortgage company that ever collected a life income from a five-dollar bill; Andy Grout, who has been conducting a prosperous instalment business for ten years on the same old stock of furniture; and Jim Christmas, who came in from the farm ten years ago to become a barber, shaving nothing but notes." Young Wallingford sat lost in admiration. "What a lovely bunch of citizens to train a growing young dollar; to teach it to jump through hoops and lay down and roll over," he declared. "And I suppose you were in a similar line, Judge?" he ventured. "Nothing like it," denied the judge emphatically. "I was in a decent, respectable loan business. Collateral loans were my specialty." "I see," said J. Rufus, chuckling. "All mankind were not your brothers, exactly, but your brothers' children." "Making me the universal uncle, yes," admitted Mr. Fox, then he suddenly puffed up with pride in his achievements. "And I do say," he boasted, "that I could give any Jew cards and spades at the game and still beat him out on points. I reckon I invented big casino, little casino and the four aces in the pawn brokerage business. Let alone my gage of the least a man would take, I had it fixed so that they could slip into my place by the front door, from the drug-store on one side, from the junk-yard on the other, from the saloon across the alley in the rear, and down-stairs, from the hall leading to Doc Turner's office." Lost in twinkling-eyed admiration of his own cleverness he lapsed into silence, but J. Rufus, eager for information, aroused him. "But why did you blow the easy little new company?" he wanted to know. "I could understand it if you had been running a local building-loan compa
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72  
73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

business

 

dollar

 
specialty
 

casino

 
company
 

admiration

 
Turner
 

brothers

 

matter

 
handle

growing

 

chuckling

 
boasted
 

achievements

 

mankind

 

denied

 

Nothing

 

spades

 

emphatically

 
children

suddenly

 
admitted
 

puffed

 

respectable

 

decent

 

Making

 

Collateral

 

universal

 

twinkling

 

cleverness


silence

 

lapsed

 

office

 
leading
 
stairs
 

information

 

understand

 

running

 

building

 

wanted


aroused
 

saloon

 

brokerage

 

reckon

 

points

 
invented
 

ventured

 

settlings

 

swallow

 

bottom