Little Poems in Prose

ished there is none greater than that of caus- ing astonishment.” “It was the bad coin” he answered calmly, as if to excuse his extrava- gance. But in my unhappy brain, always busy with tilting at windmills, (with how exhausting a gift has Nature endowed me!) this idea suddenly entered; that such conduct on the part of my friend was only excusable by the desire of cre- ating an event in the life of this poor devil, perhaps even of discovering the divers conse- quences, unfortunate or otherwise, which a bad coin in a beggar’s hand may produce. Might it not multiply itself into genuine pieces? Might it not, on the other hand, bring him to gaol?—An inn-keeper, or a baker for example, might perhaps have him arrested as a coiner, or utterer. Equally well the bad coin might pos- sibly be in his poor little speculations the germ of several days’ wealth, and so my fancy went journeying, lending wings to the spirit of my friend, and drawing every possible deduction from every possible hypothesis. But he brusquely broke into my reverie, repeating my own words, “Yes, you are right; there is no sweeter pleasure than that of sur- prising a man by giving him more than he ex- pects.”