The ￡1,000,000 pound Bank-Note

    Of course, I spoke right up now, without any fooling, and went straight to the point.

    "Oh, my dearest dear sir, I want to take back what I said. You have got a situation open that I want."

    "Name it."

    "Son-in-law."

    "Well, well, well! But you know, if you haven't ever served in that capacity, you, of course, can't furnish recommendations of a sort to satisfy the conditions of the contract, and so-"

    "Try me-oh, do, I beg of you! Only just try me thirty or forty years, and if-"

    "Oh, well, all right; it's but a little thing to ask, take her along."

    Happy, we two? There are not words enough in the unabridged to describe it. And when London got the whole history, a day or two later, of my month's adventures with that bank-note, and how they ended, did London talk, and have a good time? Yes.

    My Portia's papa took that friendly and hospitable bill back to the Bank of England and cashed it; then the Bank canceled it and made him a present of it, and he gave it to us at our wedding, and it has always hung in its frame in the sacredest place in our home ever since. For it gave me my Portia. But for it I could not have remained in London, would not have appeared at the minister's, never should have met her. And so I always say, "Yes, it's a million-pounder, as you see; but it never made but one purchase in its life, and then got the article for only about a tenth part of its value."