"
"I am so sorry for you, Edward, you know that; but be comforted; we have
our livelihood; we have our good name--"
"Yes, Mary, and that is everything. Don't mind my talk--it's just a
moment's irritation and doesn't mean anything. Kiss me--there, it's all
gone now, and I am not complaining any more. What have you been getting?
What's in the sack?"
Then his wife told him the great secret. It dazed him for a moment; then
he said:
"It weighs a hundred and sixty pounds? Why, Mary, it's for-ty thou-sand
dollars--think of it--a whole fortune! Not ten men in this village are
worth that much. Give me the paper."
He skimmed through it and said:
"Isn't it an adventure! Why, it's a romance; it's like the impossible
things one reads about in books, and never sees in life." He was well
stirred up now; cheerful, even gleeful. He tapped his old wife on the
cheek, and said humorously, "Why, we're rich, Mary, rich; all we've got
to do is to bury the money and burn the papers. If the gambler ever
comes to inquire, we'll merely look coldly upon him and say: 'What is
this nonsense you are talking? We have never heard of you and your sack
of gold before;' and then he would look foolish, and--"
"And in the meantime, while you are running on with your jokes, the money
is still here, and it is fast getting along toward burglar-time.
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