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Twain, Mark, 1835-1910

"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"

I _know_ it's so. And,
moreover, when you come right down to the bedrock, knight-errantry
is _worse_ than pork; for whatever happens, the pork's left, and
so somebody's benefited anyway; but when the market breaks, in a
knight-errantry whirl, and every knight in the pool passes in his
checks, what have you got for assets? Just a rubbish-pile of
battered corpses and a barrel or two of busted hardware. Can you
call _those_ assets? Give me pork, every time. Am I right?"
"Ah, peradventure my head being distraught by the manifold matters
whereunto the confusions of these but late adventured haps and
fortunings whereby not I alone nor you alone, but every each of us,
meseemeth--"
"No, it's not your head, Sandy. Your head's all right, as far as
it goes, but you don't know business; that's where the trouble
is. It unfits you to argue about business, and you're wrong
to be always trying. However, that aside, it was a good haul,
anyway, and will breed a handsome crop of reputation in Arthur's
court. And speaking of the cowboys, what a curious country this
is for women and men that never get old. Now there's Morgan le Fay,
as fresh and young as a Vassar pullet, to all appearances, and
here is this old duke of the South Marches still slashing away with
sword and lance at his time of life, after raising such a family
as he has raised.


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