Inside the extensive enclosure the multitude divided itself into
streams, ponds, eddies, refluent currents and noisy whirlpools of
people. Some rare attraction was everywhere.
Early in the day the eyes of certain of the rustic misses followed
admiringly the forms of Jack Trout and Bill Powell, handsome young
fellows dressed in homespun clothes, who, arm in arm, strolled leisurely
across the grounds, looking sharply about for some proper place to begin
the expenditure of what few dimes they had each been able to hoard up
against this gala day. They had not long to hunt. On every hand the
"hawkers hawked their wares."
Rising and falling, tender-toned, deftly managed, a voice rang out
across the crowd pleading with those who had long desired a good
investment for their money, and begging them to be sure and not let slip
this last golden opportunity.
"Only a half a dollah! Come right along this way now! Here's the great
golden scheme by which thousands have amassed untold fortunes! Here's
your only and last chance to get two ounces of first class candy, with
the probability of five dollars in gold coin, all for the small sum of
half a dollah! And the cry is--still they come!"
The speaker was such a man as one often observes in a first class
railway car, with a stout valise beside him containing samples, dressed
with remarkable care, and ever on the alert to make one's acquaintance.
He stood on top of a small table or tripod, holding in his hand a green
pasteboard package just taken from a box at his feet.
"Only a half a dollah and a fortune in your grasp! Here's the gold! Roll
right this way and run your pockets over!"
Drifting round with the tide of impulsive pleasure seekers into which
they happened to fall, Jack Trout and Bill Powell floated past a bevy of
lasses, the prettiest of whom was Minny Hart, a girl whose healthy,
vivid beauty was fast luring Jack on to the rock of matrimonial
proposals.
"Jimminy, but ain't she a little sweety!" exclaimed the latter, pinching
Bill's arm as they passed, and glancing lovingly at Minny.
"You're tellin' the truth and talkin' it smooth," replied Bill, bowing
to the girls with the swagger peculiar to a rustic who imagines he has
turned a fine period. And with fluttering hearts the boys passed on.
"Roll on ye torrents! Only a half a dollah! Right this way if you want
to become a bloated aristocrat in less than no time! Five dollahs in
gold for only a half a dollah! And whose the next lucky man?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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