The little daughter of a homeopathic physician received a ring with a pearl in it on the Christmas tree. Two days later she poked her head tearfully in at the door of her father’s office.
“Papa,” she sobbed, “Papa, I’ve lost the little pill out of my ring.”
He was from Pittsburg, Pa., and was stopping at the Manhattan Hotel. He wanted to telephone to a town about thirty miles away. He asked the girl on the switchboard to get him long-distance, and followed it up with asking the price.
“It will cost you 50 cents for three minutes,” she said sweetly.
“Fifty cents! Ye gods!” cried the man. “I don’t want to buy stock in the telephone company. I only want to talk a minute or so. Why—why—out in Pittsburg we can call up all Hades for 50 cents!”
“Yes, I know, sir,” replied the girl, “but isn’t that within your city limits?”
General St. Clair Mulholland, veteran and historian of the civil war, tells an incident showing the utter worthlessness of Confederate paper money at the close of the war. “Shortly after Lee’s surrender,” says the General, “I was a short distance from Richmond. The Confederate soldiers were going home to become men of peace again and were thinking about their farms. One had a lame, broken-down horse which he viewed with pride. ‘Wish I had him, Jim,’ said the other. ‘What’ll you take for him? I’ll give you $20,000 for him.’ ‘No,’ said Jim. ‘Give you $50,000.’ ‘No,’ said Jim. ‘Give you $100,000,’ his friend said. ‘Not much,’ replied Jim, ‘I just gave $120,000 to have him shod.’”