Damage to furniture on that occasion was only sixteen dollars;
and I got every cent of it, by holding on to their trunks. There have
been a good many such little affairs in this village. I mention these
two cases only as examples."
"And yet no people in the world is more peaceable, nor more easily
satisfied, than the people of this town," said the postmaster. "They
only axes not to be imposed on. That's all."
"A kinder-hearted people don't live on the face of this earth," added
Boolpin, stating the case in another way; "but you mustn't give them
less than twenty-five cents' worth for a quarter."
Tiffles replied to the effect that he would give them a dollar's worth
apiece; but, in his heart, he foresaw, with that remarkable prescience
which is occasionally vouchsafed to mortals, that the panorama of Africa
was doomed to be a bad failure; and he bitterly regretted that he had
not tried some one of a dozen other immense speculations which he had
thought of. But he determined to give one night's exhibition, whatever
might be the consequences. "I may as well die for an old sheep as a
lamb," thought Tiffles.
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