I could make it more if I had time; but
sometimes money on the spot is worth a lot more than what's just crawling
to you--snailing along while you eat your heart out. Two thousand dollars
is two thousand dollars--I know what it's worth to me, though it mayn't
be much to you; but I didn't earn it. It belonged to a first-class man,
and he worked for it, and he died and left it to me. It's not come easy,
go easy with me. I like to feel I've got two thousand cash without having
to mortgage for it. But it belonged to a number-one man, a man of
brains--I've got no brains, only some sense--and I want another good man
to use it and make the world easier for himself."
It was a long speech, and she delivered it in little gasps of oratory
which were brightened by her wonderfully kind smile and the heart--not to
say sentiment--which showed in her face. The sentiment, however, did not
prejudice Jean Jacques against her, for he was a sentimentalist himself.
His feelings were very quick, and before she had spoken fifty words the
underglow of his eyes was flooded by something which might have been
mistaken for tears. It was, however, only the moisture of gratitude and
the soul's good feeling.
"Well there, well there," he said when she had finished, "I've never had
anything like this in my life before. It's the biggest thing in the art
of being a neighbour I've ever seen.
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