21. "No, sir! I wouldn't let you have them for a thousand dollars! What could I do without my eyes? I couldn't see mother, nor the baby, nor the flowers, nor the horses, nor anything," added Harry, growing warmer and warmer.
22. "I will give you two thousand," urged Uncle Ben, taking a roll of bank notes out of his pocket. Harry, standing at a respectful distance, shouted that he never would do any such thing.
23. "Very well," continued the uncle, with a serious air, at the same time writing something in his notebook, "I can't afford to give you more than two thousand dollars, so I shall have to do without your eyes; but," he added, "I will tell you what I will do, I will give you twenty dollars if you will let me put a few drops from this bottle in your ears. It will not hurt, but it will make you deaf. I want to try some experiments with deafness, you see. Come quickly, now! Here are the twenty dollars all ready for you."
24. "Make me deaf!" shouted Harry, without even looking at the gold pieces temptingly displayed upon the table. "I guess you will not do that, either. Why, I couldn't hear a single word if I were deaf, could I?"
25. "Probably not," replied Uncle Ben. So, of course, Harry refused again. He would never give up his hearing, he said, "no, not for three thousand dollars."
26. Uncle Ben made another note in his book, and then came out with large bids for "a right arm," then "left arm," "hands," "feet," "nose," finally ending with an offer of ten thousand dollars for "mother," and five thousand for "the baby."
27. To all of these offers Harry shook his head, his eyes flashing, and exclamations of surprise and indignation bursting from his lips. At last, Uncle Ben said he must give up his experiments, for Harry's prices were entirely too high.
28. "Ha! ha!" laughed the boy, exultingly, and he folded his dimpled arms and looked as if to say, "I'd like to see the man who could pay them!"
29. "Why, Harry, look here!" exclaimed Uncle Ben, peeping into his notebook, "here is a big addition sum, I tell you!" He added the numbers, and they amounted to thirty-two thousand dollars.
30. "There, Harry," said Uncle Ben, "don't you think you are foolish not to accept some of my offers?" "No, sir, I don't," answered Harry, resolutely. "Then," said Uncle Ben, "you talk of being poor, and by your own showing you have treasures for which you will not take thirty-two thousand dollars. What do you say to that?"