Page:Floating City (1904).djvu/79

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A FLOATING CITY.
55

Reverends,' and who have the disagreeable fault of never putting their hands before their mouths when they sneeze. Ah! my dear sir, they are true Saxons, always keenly alive to a bargain; put two Yankees in a room together, and in an hour they will each have gained ten dollars from the other."

"I will not ask how," replied I, smiling at the Doctor, "but among them I see a little man with a consequential air, looking like a weather-cock, and dressed in a long overcoat, with rather short black trousers,—who is that gentleman?"

"He is a Protestant minister, a man of 'importance' in Massachusetts, where he is going to join his wife, an ex-governess advantageously implicated in a celebrated lawsuit."

"And that tall, gloomy-looking fellow, who seems to be absorbed in calculation?"

"That man calculates: in fact," said the Doctor, "he is for ever calculating."

"Problems?"

"No, his fortune, he is a man of 'importance,' at any moment he knows almost to a farthing what he is worth; he is rich, a fourth part of New York is built on his land; a quarter of an hour ago he possessed 1,625,367 dollars and a half, but now he has only 1,625,367 dollars and a quarter."