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- 4739
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4624
- text
- Truman!--No, no.--There, the plank's in--too late--we're off."
With that, the huge boat, with a mighty, walrus wallow, rolled away from
the shore, resuming her course.
"How vexatious!" exclaimed the herb-doctor, returning. "Had we been but
one single moment sooner.--There he goes, now, towards yon hotel, his
portmanteau following. You see him, don't you?"
"Where? where?"
"Can't see him any more. Wheel-house shot between. I am very sorry. I
should have so liked you to have let him have a hundred or so of your
money. You would have been pleased with the investment, believe me."
"Oh, I _have_ let him have some of my money," groaned the old man.
"You have? My dear sir," seizing both the miser's hands in both his own
and heartily shaking them. "My dear sir, how I congratulate you. You
don't know."
"Ugh, ugh! I fear I don't," with another groan. "His name is Truman, is
it?"
"John Truman."
"Where does he live?"
"In St. Louis."
"Where's his office?"
"Let me see. Jones street, number one hundred and--no, no--anyway, it's
somewhere or other up-stairs in Jones street."
"Can't you remember the number? Try, now."
"One hundred--two hundred--three hundred--"
"Oh, my hundred dollars! I wonder whether it will be one hundred, two
hundred, three hundred, with them! Ugh, ugh! Can't remember the number?"
"Positively, though I once knew, I have forgotten, quite forgotten it.
Strange. But never mind. You will easily learn in St. Louis. He is well
known there."
"But I have no receipt--ugh, ugh! Nothing to show--don't know where I
stand--ought to have a guard_ee_an--ugh, ugh! Don't know anything. Ugh,
ugh!"
"Why, you know that you gave him your confidence, don't you?"
"Oh, yes."
"Well, then?"
"But what, what--how, how--ugh, ugh!"
"Why, didn't he tell you?"
"No."
"What! Didn't he tell you that it was a secret, a mystery?"
"Oh--yes."
"Well, then?"
"But I have no bond."
"Don't need any with Mr. Truman. Mr. Truman's word is his bond."
"But how am I to get my profits--ugh, ugh!--and my money back? Don't
know anything. Ugh, ugh!"
"Oh, you must have confidence."
"Don't say that word again. Makes my head spin so. Oh, I'm so old and
miserable, nobody caring for me, everybody fleecing me, and my head
spins so--ugh, ugh!--and this cough racks me so. I say again, I ought to
have a guard_ee_an."
"So you ought; and Mr. Truman is your guardian to the extent you
invested with him. Sorry we missed him just now. But you'll hear from
him. All right. It's imprudent, though, to expose yourself this way. Let
me take you to your berth."
Forlornly enough the old miser moved slowly away with him. But, while
descending a stairway, he was seized with such coughing that he was fain
to pause.
"That is a very bad cough."
"Church-yard--ugh, ugh!--church-yard cough.--Ugh!"
"Have you tried anything for it?"
"Tired of trying. Nothing does me any good--ugh! ugh! Not even the
Mammoth Cave. Ugh! ugh! Denned there six months, but coughed so bad the
rest of the coughers--ugh! ugh!--black-balled me out. Ugh, ugh! Nothing
does me good."
"But have you tried the Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator, sir?"
"That's what that Truman--ugh, ugh!--said I ought to take.
Yarb-medicine; you are that yarb-doctor, too?"
"The same. Suppose you try one of my boxes now. Trust me, from what I
know of Mr. Truman, he is not the gentleman to recommend, even in behalf
of a friend, anything of whose excellence he is not conscientiously
satisfied."
"Ugh!--how much?"
"Only two dollars a box."
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