COVETOUS

~Billion Dollar Not Enough

 One of the riches men in the world, oil tycoon Paul Getty, was being interviewed in London. “If you retired now,” asked a reporter, “would you say your holdings would be worth a billion dollars?” Getty paced up and down the room, mentally adding. “I suppose so,” he said, “but remember, a billion doesn’t go as far as it used to.”

—Clipper Travel

~ Needs Another Hundred Thousand

 The first assignment I give to my classes in Basic English is a composition on “What I Would Do If I Had a Million Dollars.” My students are a delightful potpourri of Americans of all ages and colors, including immigrants from five continents, and young foreign students.

 The latest class was pin-drop quiet for 30 minutes, while the students struggled to express their dreams in English. Then a ponderously built senora stalked up to my desk and flung down two pages of crossed-out and written-over figures.

 “Not enough, teacher!” she proclaimed in disgust. “I gotta have another hundred thousand!”

—Reader’s Digest

~ Could Be Spot Of Hell

 Scott Fitzgerald, famous novelist of our day, had just died and on his desk was found a plot for a new novel. He was going to write a book in which a wealthy man died and left a strange will. The will bequeathed all of his millions to be divided equally, share and share alike, to all his relatives. There was one condition. They were to come and live together in his spacious mansion. Below the outlined plot was a note. “This could be a little spot of hell.”

~ Drama With 26,000 Actors

 On the night of November 16, 1930, Mrs. Henrietta Garrett, a lonely 81-year-old widow, died in her home in Philadelphia and, unwillingly, started the most fantastic case of inheritance litigation in history.

 She had failed to leave a will, or no will was found, to her $17,000,000 estate; a mystery left unsolved. She had expertly handled her financial affairs since the death of her husband in 1895 and, therefore, she must have realized that, without a will, her fortune would become involved in many legal battles. Although Mrs. Garret had, at the time of her death, only one known relative, a second cousin, and less than a dozen friends, attempts to prove relationship to her and to claim a part or all her estate have since been made by more than 26,000 persons from 47 states and 29 foreign countries, represented by more than 3,000 lawyers.

 In their frantic efforts, these alleged relatives have committed perjury, faked family records, changed their own names, altered data in church Bibles and concocted absurd tales of illegitimacy. As a result, twelve were fined, ten received jail sentences, two committed suicide and three were murdered. The estate has, in the meantime, increased to $30,000,000 and is not expected to be settled for some time.

—Freling Foster

~ Cats Eat Rats, & Vice Versa

 An 1875 newspaper advertisement, quoted in Geographical Review:

 Glorious opportunity to get rich. We are starting a cat ranch in Lacon with 10,000 cats. Each cat will average 12 kittens a year. The catskins will sell for 30 cents each. One hundred men can skin 5000 cats a day. We figure a daily profit of over $10,000. Now what shall we feed the cats? We will start a rat ranch next door with one million rats. The rats will breed 12 times faster than the cats. So we will have 4 rats to feed each day to each cat. Now what shall we feed the rats? We will feed the rats the carcasses of the cats after they have been skinned. Now Get This! We feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats and get the skins for nothing.

—Baltimore Sun

~Monkey’s Clenched Fists

 In North Africa the natives have a very easy way to capture monkeys. A gourd, with a hole just sufficiently large so that a monkey can thrust his hand into it, is filled with nuts and fastened firmly to a branch of a tree at sunset. During the night a monkey will discover the scent of food, and its source, and will put his hand into the gourd and grasp a handful of nuts. But the hole is too small for the monkey to withdraw his clenched fist, and he has not sense enough to let go of his bounty so that he may escape. Thus he pulls and pulls without success, and when morning comes he is quickly and easily taken.

—The Pilgrim

~ Man’s Only Real Right

 In Tolstoy’s Man and Dame, Fortune the hero is told he can have the right to all of the land around which he can plow a furrow in a single day. The man started off with great vigor, and was going to encompass only that which he could easily care for. But as the day progressed he desired more and more rights. He plowed and plowed, until at the end of the day he could in no possible way return to his original point of departure, but struggling to do so, he fell, the victim of a heart attack. The only right he secured was the right to 18 square feet of land in which he was buried.

~To Compare North, South America

 Roger Babson, the statistician, was lunching with the President of Argentina. “Mr. Babson,” the President said, “I have been wondering why it is that South America with all its natural advantages, its mines of iron, copper, coal, silver and gold; its rivers and great waterfalls which rival Niagara, is so far behind North America.”

 Babson replied, “Well, Mr. President, what do you think is the reason?”

 He was silent for a while before he answered. “I have come to this conclusion. South America was settled by the Spanish, who came to South America in search of gold; but North America was settled by the Pilgrim Fathers, who went there in search of God.”

—Christian Digest

~Two Greedy Men’s Wish

 One of the old saints, according to the legend, in his journey overtook two travelers. One was a greedy, avaricious, covetous man; the other was of a jealous and envious nature. When they came to the parting of ways, the saint said he would give them a parting gift. Whichever made a wish first would have his wish fulfilled, and the other man would get a double portion of what the first had asked for.

 The greedy man knew what he wanted; but he was afraid to make his wish, because he wanted a double portion and could not bear the thought of his companion getting twice as much as he had. But the envious man was also unwilling to wish first, because he could not stand the idea of his companion getting twice as much as he would get. So each waited for the other to wish first.

 At length the greedy man took his fellow by the throat and said he would choke him to death unless he made his wish. At that the envious man said, “Very well; I will make my wish. I wish to be made blind in one eye.” Immediately he lost the sight of his eye—and his companion went blind in both eyes.

—C. E. Macartney

~ Big Deal!

 Letter to The Christian Science Monitor:

 “Dear Sir: When I subscribed a year ago you stated that if I was not satisfied at the end of the year I could have my money back. Well, I would like to have it back.

 “On second thought, to save you trouble, you may apply it on my next year’s subscription.”

~Lincoln’s Children And Common Problem

 A Springfield neighbor was drawn to his door one day by the crying of children. When he got there, he saw Lincoln passing by with his two sons, both crying lustily. “What is the matter with the boys?” asked the man. “Just what is the matter with the whole world!” answered Lincoln. “I have three walnuts and each boy wants two.”

—Christian Herald

~“Let Her Be Generous”

 A small boy was given two apples and told to divide them with his sister, and in doing so to be generous in giving her the larger one. He said finally, “Look Ma, you give her the apples and ask her to be generous.”

~Inflation And Charity

 A man had posted himself in front of an office building with a tray of shoelaces. One executive made it a daily habit to give the unfortunate a dime, but he never took the laces. One day the peddler, on receiving the dime, tapped his departing benefactor on the back: “I don’t like to complain, sir, but the laces are now 15 cents.”

—American Legion

~ Insulting The “Insult”

 A cab driver was overheard complaining to a woman passenger: “This 15-cent tip is an insult.”

 “Oh?” she said. “How much should it be?”

 “Another 15 cents, at least,” said the cabbie.

 “My dear fellow,” she said, “I wouldn’t dream of insulting you twice!”

—San Francisco Chronicle

~Wanting Both

 A teacher had just related to a class of boys the story of the rich man and Lazarus; then he asked, “Now, which would you rather be, boys—the rich man or Lazarus?”

 One boy replied: “I’d want to be the rich man while I’m living and Lazarus when I die.”

—Way Of Holiness

~“He Wants You!”

 A doctor, who had doctored a man’s son to death and was threatened with legal proceedings, agreed to hand over his own son for adoption. Later on, he managed to cause the death of a client’s servant, and was obliged to give up the only servant he had. One night there came a knock at his door from a neighbor, who said: “My wife is having a baby. Please come and attend to her at once!”

 “Ah, the blackguard!” cried the doctor to his wife. “I know what he wants this time—he wants you.”

—Chinese Humor

~Three-Cent Word Temptation

 Erle Stanley Gardner tells about his early days as a writer of Western stories:

 “When a writer is writing at three cents a word, he is painfully conscious of the number of words. In fact, when I was typing my own stories, I had an adding machine device connected to the space bar of my typewriter, so that every time I hit the space bar it registered a figure on my word counter.

 “Without my realizing it, my heroes developed a habit of missing the first five shots, only to connect with the last bullet in the gun. At one time an editor took me to task for this. How did it happen that my characters, who were chain lightning with a gun, were so inaccurate with the first five shots? I told the editor frankly, ’At three cents a word, every time I say bang in the story I get three cents. If you think I’m going to have the gun battle over while my hero has got 15 cents worth of unexploded ammunition in the cylinder of his gun, you’re mistaken. “

—The Atlantic Monthly

Return to "Illustrations Plus" MENU