“There are worse things than teaching school! Being a paper millionaire is one of them! As for the two thousand dollars a year, you really get it, Sam! It’s not real estate money, it’s money you can spend. You can buy a ham sandwich with it.”
Sam laughed. “You’re right!” he said. “I don’t blame you. It’s the truth!” He began to shake his head slowly. “Lord, Lord!” he said. “They’ve all gone clean out of their heads here…Never saw anything like it in my life…Why, they’re all crazy-as a loon!” he exclaimed. “You can’t talk to them…You can’t reason with them…They won’t listen to you…They’re getting prices for property here that you couldn’t get’ in New York.”
“Are they getting it?”
“Well,” he said, with a falsetto laugh, “they get the first five hundred dollars…You pay the next five hundred thousand on time.”
“How much time?”
“God!” he said. “I don’t know…All you want, I reckon…For ever!...It doesn’t matter…You sell it next day for a million.”
“On time?”
“That’s it!” he cried, laughing. “You make half a million just like that.”
“On time?”
“You’ve got it!” said Sam. “On time…God! Crazy, crazy, crazy,” he kept laughing and shaking his head. “That’s the way they make it.”
“Are you making it, too?”
At once his manner became feverishly earnest: “Why, it’s the damnedest thing you ever heard of!” he said. “I’m raking it in hand over fist!...Made three hundred thousand dollars in the last two months…Why, it’s the truth!...Made a trade yesterday and turned round and sold the lot again not two hours later…Fifty thousand dollars just like that!” he snapped his fingers. “Does your uncle want to sell that house on Locust Street where your Aunt Maw lived?...Have you talked to him about it?...Would he consider an offer?”
“I suppose so, if he gets enough.”
“How much does be want?” he demanded impatiently. “Would he take a hundred thousand?”
“Could you get it for him?”
“I could get it within twenty-four hours,” he said. “I know a man who’d snap it up in five minutes…I tell you what I’ll do, Monk, if you persuade him to sell—I’ll split the commission with you…I’ll give you five thousand dollars.”
“All right, Sam, it’s a go. Could you let me have fifty cents on account?”
“Do you think he’ll sell?” he asked eagerly.
“Really, I don’t know, but I doubt it. That place was my grandfather’s. It’s been in the family a long time. I imagine he’ll want to keep it.”
“Keep it! What’s the sense in keeping it?...Now’s the time when things are at the peak. He’ll never get a better offer!”
“I know, but he’s expecting to strike oil out in the backyard any time now,” said George with a laugh.
At this moment there was a disturbance among the tides of traffic in the street. A magnificent car detached itself from the stream of humbler vehicles and moved in swiftly to the kerb, where it came to a smooth stop—a glitter of nickel, glass, and burnished steel. From it a gaudily attired creature stepped down to the pavement with an air of princely indolence, tucked a light Malacca cane carelessly under its right armpit, and slowly and fastidiously withdrew from its nicotined fingers a pair of lemon-coloured gloves, at the same time saying to the liveried chauffeur:
“You may go, James. Call for me again in hal-luf an houah!” The creature’s face was thin and sunken. Its complexion was a deathly sallow—all except the nose, which was bulbous and glowed a brilliant red, showing an intricate network of enlarged purple veins. Its toothless jaws were equipped with such an enormous set of glittering false teeth that the lips could not cover them, and they grinned at the world with the prognathous bleakness of a skeleton. The whole figure, although heavy and shambling, had the tottering appearance which suggested a stupendous debauchery. It moved forward with its false, bleak grin, leaning heavily upon the stick, and suddenly George recognised that native ruin which had been known to him since childhood as Tim Wagner.