What say you, Paul?"
"I say, no! I wouldn't engage in such a business, not if it paid me a
hundred thousand dollars a year. I think these first class saloons are
just as great a curse to the community as the low groggeries, and I look
upon them as the fountain heads of the low groggeries. The man who
begins to drink in the well lighted and splendidly furnished saloon is
in danger of finishing in the lowest dens of vice and shame."
"As you please," said John Anderson stiffly, "I thought that as business
is dull that I would show you a chance, that would yield you a handsome
profit; but if you refuse, there is no harm done. I know young men who
would jump at the chance."
You may think it strange that knowing Paul Clifford as John Anderson
did, that he should propose to him an interest in a drinking saloon;
but John Anderson was a man who was almost destitute of faith in human
goodness. His motto was that "every man has his price," and as business
was fairly dull, and Paul was somewhat cramped for want of capital,
he thought a good business investment would be the price for Paul
Clifford's conscientious scruples.
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