- end_line
- 5887
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5864
- text
- "Ah, thank you. I had forgotten his passage;" then, altering in manner,
and gravely holding the bills, continued: "Respected sir, never
willingly do I handle money not with perfect willingness, nay, with a
certain alacrity, paid. Either tell me that you have a perfect and
unquestioning confidence in me (never mind the boy now) or permit me
respectfully to return these bills."
"Put 'em up, put 'em-up!"
"Thank you. Confidence is the indispensable basis of all sorts of
business transactions. Without it, commerce between man and man, as
between country and country, would, like a watch, run down and stop. And
now, supposing that against present expectation the lad should, after
all, evince some little undesirable trait, do not, respected sir, rashly
dismiss him. Have but patience, have but confidence. Those transient
vices will, ere long, fall out, and be replaced by the sound, firm, even
and permanent virtues. Ah," glancing shoreward, towards a
grotesquely-shaped bluff, "there's the Devil's Joke, as they call it:
the bell for landing will shortly ring. I must go look up the cook I
brought for the innkeeper at Cairo."
- title
- Chunk 12