Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/35

 obtaining money to which Banjo Gibson was unalterably opposed.

"Now, what's in that book worth two dollars to anybody?" Mrs. Cowgill wanted to know. She put the question pedantically, in the manner of a teacher who had the culprit right before her, and would have no evasion nor squirming out of it in the least.

The lady agent took the book and turned its pages, telling them what it was good for as she went along.

The book told how to make cider vinegar out of the cobs of green corn, horseradish out of turnips, tomato catsup from pumpkins, sofas out of salt barrels, bedsteads out of goods boxes; it told how to make honey out of corn silk, olive oil out of hickory nuts, neckties out of yarn, sofa pillows out of gunnysacks. It told how to preserve eggs in times of plenty, store them for a few years and sell them at a profit of six cents a dozen; it made plain the formulae of patent medicines, which anybody could make for three cents a bottle and sell for a dollar; it exposed the tricks of the grocery business, and gave a full working order for the practice of spiritualism and legerdemain. It told how to make valuable things from trash, giving tables of cost and return, showing what immense profits lay waiting the smart citizen in the very neighborhood at his hand. The man who owned the book had his hand in the world's pocket.

All of that, and a great deal more, the young lady agent recited, not very spiritedly, to be sure; not with the certainty of confidence.