The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: the color of the back of a twenty dollar gold certificate, blue eyes
and a system of beauty that would make the girl on the cover of a July
magazine look like a cook on a Monongahela coal barge.
"She had on a low necked dress covered with silver spangles, and
diamond rings and ear bobs. Her arms was bare; and she was using a
desk telephone with one hand, and drinking tea with the other.
"'Well, boys,' says she after a bit, 'what is it?'
"I told her in as few words as possible what we wanted for Bill, and
the price we could pay.
"'Those western appointments,' says she, 'are easy. Le'me see, now,'
says she, 'who could put that through for us. No use fooling with the
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