A smile reserve in my mind in perpetuity
已有 587 次阅读 2012-05-23 17:29 标签: sharp reserve nothing factoryThe One Million Pound Bank-Note
By this time I was tramping the streets
again. The sight of a ball mill factory anad
a tailor-shop gave me a sharp longing to shed my rags, and to clothe myself
decently once more. Could I afford it? No; I had nothing in the world but a
million pounds. So I forced myself to go on by. But soon I was drifting back
again. I asked if they had a misfit suit on their hands. The fellow I spoke to
nodded his head towards another fellow, and gave me no answer.
I waited till
he was done with what he was doing, then he took me into a back room, and
overhauled a pile of rejected suits, and selected the rattiest one for me. I put
it on. It didn't fit, and wasn't in any way attractive, but it was new, and I
was anxious to have it; so I said with some diffidence: “It would be an
accommodation to me if you could wait some days for the money. I haven't any
small change about me.”
The fellow worked up a sarcastic expression of
countenance, and said: “Oh, you haven't? Well, of course, I'd only expect
gentlemen like you to carry large change.” I was nettled, and said: “My friend,
you shouldn't judge a stranger always by the clothes he wears. I am quite able
to pay for this suit; I simply didn't wish to put you to the trouble of changing
a large note.” “I didn't mean any particular harm,” he said, “but I might say it
wasn't quite your affair to jump to the conclusion that we couldn't change any
note that you might happen to be carrying around. On the contrary, we can.” I
handed the note to him, and said: “Oh, very well; I apologize.”
He received
it with a smile, one of those large smiles which goes around all over, and looks
like the place where you have thrown a brick in a pond; and then in the act of
his taking a glimpse of the bill this smile froze solid, and turned yellow. I
never before saw a smile caught like that, in perpetuity.
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