St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1901-01-19
THOUSAND oNE-DoLLAR BILLS
They Conquered the ole Man whes
One Big Bankuote
Failed.


valuable man on the staff of any. bic
railroad = said New Orleans lawyer
apropos of nothing in particular, re
lates the Times-Democrat. 1T is q
great art" he continued, sand / had
the fact impressed on me by some.
thing rather unusual that happened
early in my career. / had been in
practice only year or SO, as / re,
member, when / was engaged by a
certain railroad company to repre-
/ sent 1T in damage suit brought By
an old fellow who had been hurt at
a crossing. got the job because the
regular attorney and regular assist
/ ant attorney were out of town on
bigger affairs, and / threw myself
/ into it with unlimited enthusiasm A
/ little investigation convinced me,
however, that the company didn't t
have leg to stand on, and neither,
for that matter, did the claimant,
both of 'em having been broken above
the knee. So | advised compromise
and was told to settle it, if l could,
for $1,000. That fixed limit discour-
4
brought for 100000, and / knew the
| opposition lawyers had been filing
their client with rosy hopes; but /
thought up scheme that seemed
promising. The claimant was an ig-
| norant old fellow, who had been a
laborer for years. and I took it for
granted that he had never had as
much as 500 at any one time in his
life. III just hypnotic him. I said
to myself, and, going to bank, I got
brand new $1,000 bill. Then I hur-
ried off to his boarding house, found
him in dirty little back room, and
made my proposition for settlement.
just as I anticipated, he declined it
Indignantly. Very well, said /, pull
ing out the bill with a studied care
lessness; in that case I'll have to re-
turn this money. But, by the, way
added. did you ever happen to see
thousand dollar bill? It's quite
handsome bit of paper To be can
did, [ was rather awed by the thing
myself. and expected him to finger it
like piece of the true cross, but to
my amazementh he took it indifferentIy.
glanced at it with no apparent inter
est, and handed it back. It's vera
pretty, he said, stolidly, and went on
smoking his pipe.
"A few days after this diseourags
ing experience" the lawyer went on,
Mr.. Andrews, the claim agent of the
line, happened to be in town and
dropped in to inquire about the case
He was veteran in the business, but
he always impressed me as being a
man totally destitute of tact, and /
never could understand how he held
his job. He chuckled when he heard
my story, My dear boy be. said,
you simply oyerplayed yourself. You
expected that old man to drop dead
at the sight Of a thousand dollar bill.
Why, bless your souli he didn't know
what it meantl It was beyond the
outposts of his imagination. He was
like you. yourself, when you hear an
astronomer talk about ten billion
miles. The figure conveys no idea to
your mind. 1t is too big. But come
with me, he added, and I'll give you
an object lesson | was surprised
and piqued, but went along, and the
first thing Andrews did was to get
1000 one-dollar bills at the bank. He
eut =tiie slips thd6 hela thefn together.
seaehed them up III a loose heap ana
wrapped them in a newspaper. Then
he went to the boarding house and
found the old man sitting ia his lit
Lle odeh rooh1' sun smoking ms pipe.
ne uioh Z seem 10 nave moved since
was there before. ell. Connally,
salu 1he ctalIn agent, aitef Few gen
eral remarks. I've brought around
that thousand collars, and want You
70 sign receipt IN fnll. The old man
get angry immediately III not do
e! ne yelled; III take what ! sued
Tor and not a cent less! You're fool
isi1, sald Andrews, calmly; no jury
VIII give you over thousand. and
your. lawyers viii get half OF that.
You'd better do business with me-
de had been holding the package of |
bills on his knee while he was talking.
and just then he made an awkward |
gesture and knocked it off. He /
grabbed at 1t wildly as it fell, and |
with one swoop scattered the money
all over the squahd little room. It |
covered everything-fioor, chairs. |
table, bed, and some of it even went. |
into the wash bowl. 'Doggone the
luck! he shouted. Here. Connally.
lend a hand. viii you, and help me