Well, like a
fool, I said to myself: 'No harm in trying!' I've got pretty sharp
teeth, you know, for a boy of my age. That's how I managed to do what a
lot of you younger fellows couldn't have done. I got them fixed into
the softest of that bunch of marrowfats. But as to pulling them out
again! The head waiter, you bet, had disappeared. And the other fellow
was standing at the window with his back to me. Looking up the street,
I should say, to see if it was going to rain."
After this little outburst, the millionaire seemed to have nothing more
to say.
He was thinking. . . .
Cornelius van Koppen loved a good liar. He knew something about the
gentle art. It was an art, he used to say, which no fool should be
allowed to cultivate. There were too many amateurs knocking about.
These bunglers spoiled the trade. Without doing any good to themselves,
they roused distrust; they rubbed the fine bloom off human credulity.
His puritan conscience was enraged at petty thefts, petty forgeries,
petty larcenies.
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