"I don't know," said Keyser, musingly.
"I'll put you up one cheap, and then you'll have somethin' reliable—somethin' there's no discount on."
"You say the old rod was a fraud?"
"The deadliest fraud you ever heard of. It hadn't an ounce of platinum within a mile of it. The man that sold it ought to be prosecuted, and the fellow that put it up without insulators should be shot. It's too bad the farmers should be gouged in this sort of way."
"And Bolt & Burnam's rod is not a fraud?"
"A fraud? Why, really, my dear sir, just cast your eye over Professor Henry's letter and these certificates, and remember that we give awritten guarantee—a positive protection, of course."
"Just castyoureye over that," said Keyser, handing him a piece of paper.
"Well, upon my word! This is indeed somewhat—that is to say it is, as it were—it looks—it looks a little like one of our own certificates."
"Just so," said Keyser. "That old rod was one of Bolt & Burnam's. You sold it to my son-in-law; you gave this certificate; you swore the points were platinum, and your man put it up."
"Then I suppose we can't trade?"
"Well, I should think not," said Keyser. Whereupon the man mounted the red wagon and moved on.
* * * * *
When Benjamin P. Gunn, the life insurance agent, called upon Mr.Butterwick, the following conversation ensued:
Gunn. "Mr. Butterwick, you have no insurance on your life, I believe? I dropped in to see if I can't get you to go into our company. We offer unparalleled inducements, and—"
Butterwick. "I don't want to insure."
Gunn. "The cost is just nothing worth speaking of; a mere trifle. And then we pay enormous dividends, so that you have so much security at such a little outlay that you can be perfectly comfortable and happy."
Butterwick. "But I don't want to be comfortable and happy. I'm trying to be miserable."
Gunn. "Now, look at this thing in a practical light. You've got to die some time or other. That is a dreadful certainty to which we must all look forward. It is fearful enough in any event, but how much more so when a man knows that he leaves nothing behind him! We all shrink from death, we all hate to think of it; the contemplation of it fills us with awful dread; but reflect, what must be the feelings of the man who enters the dark valley with the assurance that in a pecuniary sense his life has been an utter failure? Think how—"
Butterwick. "Don't scare me a bit. I want to die; been wanting to die for years. Rather die than live any time."
Gunn. "I say, think how wretched will be the condition of those dear ones whom you leave behind you! Will not the tears of your heartbroken widow be made more bitter by the poverty in which she is suddenly plunged, and by the reflection that she is left to the charity of a cold and heartless world. Will not—"
Butterwick. "I wouldn't leave her a cent if I had millions. It'll do the old woman good to skirmish around for her living. Then she'll appreciate me."
Gunn. "Your poor little children, too. Fatherless, orphaned, they will have no one to fill their famished mouths with bread, no one to protect them from harm. You die uninsured, and they enter a life of suffering from the keen pangs of poverty. You insure in our company, and they begin life with enough to feed and clothe them, and to raise them above the reach of want."
Butterwick. "I don't want to raise them above the reach of want. I want them to want. Best thing they can do is to tucker down to work as I did"
Gunn. "Oh, Mr. Butterwick, try to take a higher view of the matter. When you are an angel and you come back to revisit the scenes of earth, will it not fill you with sadness to see your dear ones exposed to the storm and the blast, to hunger and cold?"
Butterwick. "I'm not going to be an angel; and if I was, I wouldn't come back."
Gunn. "You are a poor man now. How do you know that your family will have enough when you are gone to pay your funeral expenses, to bury you decently?"
Butterwick. "I don't want to be buried."
Gunn. "Perhaps Mrs. Butterwick will be so indignant at your neglect that she will not mourn for you, that she will not shed a tear over your bier."
Butterwick. "I don't want a bier, and I'd rather she wouldn't cry any."
Gunn. "Well, then, s'posin' you go in on the endowment plan and take a policy for five thousand dollars, to be paid you when you reach the age of fifty?"
Butterwick. "I don't want five thousand dollars when I'm fifty. I wouldn't take it if you were to fling it at me and pay me to take it."
Gunn. "I'm afraid, then, I'll have to say good-morning."
Butterwick. "I don't want you to say good-morning; you can go without saying it."
Gunn. "I'll quit."
Butterwick. "Aha! now you've hit it! Idowant you to quit, and as suddenly as you can."
Then Mr. Gunn left. He thinks he will hardly insure Butterwick.
[Illustration: FINIS]
End of Project Gutenberg's Elbow-Room, by Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)