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GOLD BRICKS

Teach us Your secret, Master! yap my Yahoos.

Then for the hardness of their hearts, and for the softness of their heads, I taught them Magick.

But... alas!

Teach us Your real secret, Master! how to become invisible, how to acquire love, and oh! beyond all, how to make gold.

But how much gold will you give me for the Secret of Infinite Riches?

Then said the foremost and most foolish: Master, it is nothing; but here is an hundred thousand pounds.

This did I deign to accept, and whispered in his ear this secret:

A SUCKER IS BORN EVERY MINUTE.

COMMENTARY (ΠΗ)

The term "gold bricks" is borrowed from American finance.

The chapter is a setting of an old story.

A man advertises that he could tell anyone how to make four hundred a year certain, and would do so on receipt of a shilling. To every sender he dispatched a post-card with these words: "Do as I do."

The word "sucker" is borrowed from American finance.

The moral of the chapter is, that it is no good trying to teach people who need to be taught.