How like an untrimmed smoky night-candle did my
ambition burn! If I chanced to think in thousands
it was a strain upon me. My cerebrum must have
throbbed itself to pieces upon the addition of another
cypher. But he marshaled his legions and led them
up and down, until it dazed me. I was no better than
some cobbler with a fiddle, crooked and intent to the
twanging of his E string, while the great Napoleon
thundered by.
The secret channels of the earth and the fullness
thereof made a joyful gurgle in his thoughts. And
if he ever wandered in the country and ever saw a
primrose on the river's brim — which I consider
unlikely, his attention being engaged at the moment
on figuring the cost of oil barrels, with special consid-
eration for the price of bungs — if this man ever did
see a primrose, would it have been a yellow primrose
to him and nothing more? Bless your dear eyes, it
would have been a compound of by-products — para-
fine, wax-candles, cup-grease, lamp-black, beeswax
and peppermint drops — not to mention its proper
distillation into such rare odors as might be sold at
so much a bottle to jobbers, and a set price at retail,
with best legal talent to avoid the Sherman Act.
