The Death Ship by B. Traven Read Free Book Online

round to Flory: “Isn’t he an artist, sugar?”
    “He is a great artist,” the lady friend admitted, happy that she could say something again after such a long silence. “He is a great artist. Why, I feel sure he is the greatest artist I have ever seen. Listen, Fibby, won’t you ask him for dinner? Dear me, we would show those Penningtons something worth while. Calling themselves The Penningtons. Upstarts. The! I could just scream out loud. The! What were they anyway, only five years ago? The! I’m just waiting for the day when they say the word Mayflower . I’m only waiting for that day.”
    They are married. With a license, wedding march, church bells, and everything.
    Fibby paid not the slightest attention to the onrush of Flory’s eloquence. He kept on smiling and then again fell into heavy laughter. Once more he fished in his pocket and produced another bill.
    He handed this one also to me, and now he said: “Get that, my boy; one is for having told your story so very well; the other one is for having given me a most excellent idea for my money-making machinery; I mean my paper. You see, it’s like this: in your hands your story is worth just one dime. In my hands your story is worth in the neighborhood of five grand cold cash. I am paying you your dime with full interest. I am honest, you see; I do not steal plots, I pay what they are worth to the owner. Many thanks for your trouble. See me again some time. You may look me up in New York. Well, so long. Good-by and good luck. It was a real pleasure.
    “That was the first cash I ever received for telling a story. Yes, sir.
    I went to a money exchange. I reckoned this way: for one dollar I’ll get about two and a half gulden Dutch, so for two bucks I’ll get five gulden. Welcome, little smackers; I haven’t met you for a long time. I threw my two bills upon the counter. The man picked them up, looked at them quickly, and then began to pay me out gulden one after another. When I had five I wanted to leave, but the man said: “Wait a minute; won’t you take all with you?” So I stayed and let him pay and pay as long as he liked. What did I care? When he had finished, he said: “This makes it exactly twenty Americans.” Was I surprised! Fibby, may Wall Street bless his bank-account, had given me two tenners, and I had thought it was only two ones. I hope he makes a pile of money with the story I told him. He is a swell guy. Of course, he is from New York. People having New York for their home town are that way, not like the misers from Iowa.
    It looked to me like quite a good bit of dough. But somehow, before I could realize what a good feeling it is to have some cash, it was gone. Only those people who have lots of money learn to appreciate the real value of money, because they have time to find out. On the other hand, how can people who have no money, or very little, ever find out what money really means? It is in their hands so short a time that they have no chance to see what it means. Certain people, however, preach that only the poor know the worth of a cent. This difference in opinion is the cause of class distinction.
     

7
    Far sooner than I had expected came the morning which I knew to be the last one in a long time that would find me in a bed. I began already to hear the footsteps of policemen and night-watchmen.
    I searched my pockets and found just enough coin to make possible a hasty breakfast. Hasty breakfasts are not at all to my liking, because they are but invitations to lunches and dinners that never come. Meeting a Fibby is not an everyday occurrence. Suppose I should have the good fortune to meet one again: I shall tell the same story, but this time I’ll make it funny. It may just happen that the gent I tell the story to in a way befitting a musical comedy will receive it weeping bitterly and will get an idea contrary to Fibby’s. And if this bird happens to have a magazine for railroad men and gas-station operators and girl