Before he
meddled with it, it used to talk back like a mother-in-law, but now it
was only fit for the deaf-and-dumb asylum. Well, next he bought a lot of
cheap little double-barreled echoes, scattered around over various states
and territories; he got them at twenty per cent. off by taking the lot.
Next he bought a perfect Gatling-gun of an echo in Oregon, and it cost a
fortune, I can tell you. You may know, sir, that in the echo market the
scale of prices is cumulative, like the carat-scale in diamonds; in fact,
the same phraseology is used. A single-carat echo is worth but ten
dollars over and above the value of the land it is on; a two-carat or
double-barreled echo is worth thirty dollars; a five-carat is worth nine
hundred and fifty; a ten-carat is worth thirteen thousand. My uncle's
Oregon-echo, which he called the Great Pitt Echo, was a twenty-two carat
gem, and cost two hundred and sixteen thousand dollars--they threw the
land in, for it was four hundred miles from a settlement.
Well, in the mean time my path was a path of roses.
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