The supper at Colonel Sellers’s was not sumptuous, in the beginning, but
it improved on acquaintance. That is to say, that what Washington
regarded at first sight as mere lowly potatoes, presently became
awe-inspiring agricultural productions that had been reared in some
ducal garden beyond the sea, under the sacred eye of the duke himself,
who had sent them to Sellers; the bread was from corn which could be
grown in only one favored locality in the earth and only a favored few
could get it; the Rio coffee, which at first seemed execrable to the
taste, took to itself an improved flavor when Washington was told to
drink it slowly and not hurry what should be a lingering luxury in order
to be fully appreciated—it was from the private stores of a Brazilian
nobleman with an unrememberable name. The Colonel’s tongue was a
magician’s wand that turned dried apples into figs and water into wine
as easily as it could change a hovel into a palace and present poverty
into imminent future riches.
Washington slept in a cold bed in a carpetless room and woke up in a
palace in the morning; at least the palace lingered during the moment
that he was rubbing his eyes and getting his bearings—and then it
disappeared and he recognized that the Colonel’s inspiring talk had been
influencing his dreams. Fatigue had made him sleep late; when he entered
the sitting-room he noticed that the old haircloth sofa was absent; when
he sat down to breakfast the Colonel tossed six or seven dollars in
bills on the table, counted them over, said he was a little short and
must call upon his banker; then returned the bills to his wallet with
the indifferent air of a man who is used to money. The breakfast was not
an improvement upon the supper, but the Colonel talked it up and
transformed it into an oriental feast. By and by, he said:
“I intend to look out for you, Washington, my boy. I hunted up a place
for you yesterday, but I am not referring to that, now—that is a mere
livelihood—mere bread and butter; but when I say I mean to look out for
you I mean something very different. I mean to put things in your way
that will make a mere livelihood a trifling thing. I’ll put you in a way
to make more money than you’ll ever know what to do with. You’ll be
right here where I can put my hand on you when anything turns up. I’ve
got some prodigious operations on foot; but I’m keeping quiet; mum’s the
word; your old hand don’t go around pow-wowing and letting everybody see
his k’yards and find out his little game. But all in good time,
Washington, all in good time. You’ll see. Now, there’s an operation in
corn that looks well. Some New York men are trying to get me to go into
it—buy up all the growing crops and just boss the market when they
mature—ah, I tell you, it’s a great thing. And it only costs a trifle;
two millions or two and a half will do it. I haven’t exactly promised
yet—there’s no hurry—the more indifferent I seem, you know, the more
anxious those fellows will get. And then there is the hog
speculation—that’s bigger still. We’ve got quiet men at work” (he was
very impressive here), “mousing around, to get propositions out of all
the farmers in the whole West and Northwest for the hog crop, and other
agents quietly getting propositions and terms out of all the
manufactories—and don’t you see, if we can get all the hogs and all the
slaughter-houses into our hands on the dead quiet—whew! it would take
three ships to carry the money. I’ve looked into the thing—calculated
all the chances for and all the chances against, and though I shake my
head and hesitate and keep on thinking, apparently, I’ve got my mind
made up that if the thing can be done on a capital of six millions,
that’s the horse to put up money on! Why, Washington—but what’s the use
of talking about it—any man can see that there’s whole Atlantic oceans
of cash in it, gulfs and bays thrown in. But there’s a bigger thing than
that, yet—a bigger——”
“Why, Colonel, you can’t want anything bigger!” said Washington, his
eyes blazing. “Oh, I wish I could go into either of those speculations—I
only wish I had money—I wish I wasn’t cramped and kept down and fettered
with poverty, and such prodigious chances lying right here in sight! Oh,
it is a fearful thing to be poor. But don’t throw away those things—they
are so splendid that I can see how sure they are. Don’t throw them away
for something still better and maybe fail in it! I wouldn’t, Colonel. I
would stick to these. I wish father were here and were his old self
again. Oh, he never in his life had such chances as these are. Colonel,
you _can’t_ improve on these—no man can improve on them!”
A sweet, compassionate smile played about the Colonel’s features, and he
leaned over the table with the air of a man who is “going to show you”
and do it without the least trouble:
“Why Washington, my boy, these things are nothing. They _look_ large—of
course they look large to a novice—but to a man who has been all his
life accustomed to large operations—pshaw! They’re well enough to while
away an idle hour with, or furnish a bit of employment that will give a
trifle of idle capital a chance to earn its bread while it is waiting
for something to _do_, but—now just listen a moment—just let me give you
an idea of what we old veterans of commerce call ‘business.’ Here’s the
Rothschilds’ proposition—this is between you and me, you understand——”
Washington nodded three or four times impatiently, and his glowing eyes
said, “Yes, yes—hurry—I understand——”
“——for I wouldn’t have it get out for a fortune. They want me to go in
with them on the sly—agent was here two weeks ago about it—go in on the
sly” (voice down to an impressive whisper, now) “and buy up a hundred
and thirteen wildcat banks in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, and
Missouri—notes of these banks are at all sorts of discount now—average
discount of the hundred and thirteen is forty-four per cent.—buy them
all up, you see, and then all of a sudden let the cat out of the bag!
Whiz! the stock of every one of those wildcats would spin up to a
tremendous premium before you could turn a handspring—profit on the
speculation not a dollar less than forty millions!” (An eloquent pause
while the marvelous vision settled into W.’s focus.) “Where’s your hogs
now! Why, my dear innocent boy, we would just sit down on the front
doorsteps and peddle banks like lucifer matches!”
Washington finally got his breath and said:
“Oh, it is perfectly wonderful! Why couldn’t these things have happened
in father’s day. And I—it’s of no use—they simply lie before my face and
mock me. There is nothing for me to do but to stand helpless and see
other people reap the astonishing harvest.”
“Never mind, Washington, don’t you worry. I’ll fix you. There’s plenty
of chances. How much money have you got?”
In the presence of so many millions, Washington could not keep from
blushing when he had to confess that he had but eighteen dollars in the
world.
“Well, all right—don’t despair. Other people had been obliged to begin
with less. I have a small idea that may develop into something for us
both, all in good time. Keep your money close and add to it. I’ll make
it breed. I’ve been experimenting (to pass away the time) on a little
preparation for curing sore eyes—a kind of decoction nine-tenths water
and the other tenth drugs that don’t cost more than a dollar a barrel;
I’m still experimenting; there’s one ingredient wanted yet to perfect
the thing, and somehow I can’t just manage to hit upon the thing that’s
necessary, and I don’t dare talk with a chemist, of course. But I’m
progressing, and before many weeks I wager the country will ring with
the fame of Beriah Sellers’ Infallible Imperial Oriental Optic Liniment
and Salvation for Sore Eyes—the Medical Wonder of the Age! Small bottles
fifty cents, large ones a dollar. Average cost, five and seven cents for
the two sizes. The first year sell, say, ten thousand bottles in
Missouri, seven thousand in Iowa, three thousand in Arkansas, four
thousand in Kentucky, six thousand in Illinois, and say twenty-five
thousand in the rest of the country. Total, fifty-five thousand bottles;
profit clear of all expenses, twenty thousand dollars at the very lowest
calculation. All the capital needed is to manufacture the first two
thousand bottles—say a hundred and fifty dollars—then the money would
begin to flow in. The second year, sales would reach 200,000
bottles—clear profit, say, $75,000—and in the meantime the great factory
would be building in St. Louis, to cost, say, $100,000. The third year
we could easily sell 1,000,000 bottles in the United States and——”
“Oh, splendid!” said Washington. “Let’s commence right away—let’s——”
“——1,000,000 bottles in the United States—profit at least $350,000—and
_then_ it would begin to be time to turn our attention toward the _real_
idea of the business.”
“The _real_ idea of it! Ain’t $350,000 a year pretty real——”
“Stuff! Why, what an infant you are, Washington—what a guileless,
shortsighted, easily-contented innocent you are, my poor little
country-bred know-nothing! Would I go to all that trouble and bother for
the poor crumbs a body might pick up in _this_ country? Now do I look
like a man who—does my history suggest that I am a man who deals in
trifles, contents himself with the narrow horizon that hems in the
common herd, sees no further than the end of his nose? Now, _you_ know
that that is not me. Couldn’t be me. _You_ ought to know that if I throw
my time and abilities into a patent medicine, it’s a patent medicine
whose field of operations is the solid earth! its clients the swarming
nations that inhabit it! Why what is the republic of America for an
eye-water country? Lord bless you, it is nothing but a barren highway
that you’ve got to cross to get _to_ the true eye-water market! Why,
Washington, in the Oriental countries people swarm like the sands of the
desert; every square mile of land upholds its thousands upon thousands
of struggling human creatures—and every separate and individual devil of
them’s got the ophthalmia! It’s as natural to them as noses are, and
sin. It’s born with them, it stays with them, that’s all that some of
them have left when they die. Three years of introductory trade in the
Orient and what will be the result? Why, our headquarters would be in
Constantinople and our hindquarters in Further India! Factories and
warehouses in Cairo, Ispahan, Bagdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Yedo, Peking,
Bangkok, Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta! Annual income—well, God only knows
how many millions and millions apiece!”
Washington was so dazed, so bewildered—his heart and his eyes had
wandered so far away among the strange lands beyond the seas, and such
avalanches of coin and currency had fluttered and jingled confusedly
down before him, that he was now as one who had been whirling round and
round for a time, and stopping all at once, finds his surroundings still
whirling and all objects a dancing chaos. However, little by little the
Sellers family cooled down and crystallized into shape, and the poor
room lost its glitter and resumed its poverty. Then the youth found his
voice and begged Sellers to drop everything and hurry up the eye-water;
and he got out his eighteen dollars and tried to force it upon the
Colonel—pleaded with him to take it—implored him to do it. But the
Colonel would not; said he would not need the capital (in his native
magnificent way he called that eighteen dollars capital) till the
eye-water was an accomplished fact. He made Washington easy in his mind,
though, by promising that he would call for it just as soon as the
invention was finished, and he added the glad tidings that nobody but
just they two should be admitted to a share in the speculation.
When Washington left the breakfast table he worshiped that man.
_FROM_ “ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER” (1874–5)