Among numerous school editions of the Prolog and The Knight's Tale may be named one issued by The American Book Co., 20
cents.
In other towns in Italy the people lie around quietly and wait for you to ask them a question or do some overt act that can be charged for--but in Annunciation they have lost even that fragment of delicacy; they seize a lady's shawl from a chair and hand it to her and charge a penny; they open a carriage door, and charge for it--shut it when you get out, and charge for it; they help you to take off a duster--two
cents; brush your clothes and make them worse than they were before--two
cents; smile upon you--two
cents; bow, with a lick-spittle smirk, hat in hand-- two
cents; they volunteer all information, such as that the mules will arrive presently--two cents--warm day, sir--two cents--take you four hours to make the ascent--two
cents.
"Well, observe the difference: you pay eight
cents and four mills, we pay only four
cents." I prepared now to sock it to him.
"Three hundred, say at six per
cent.--that'd be six
cents on the dollar, sixty
cents on ten dollars, six dollars on the hundred, on three hundred eighteen dollars.
On a day when she had filled her brood with what was left in the house, Maria invested her last fifteen
cents in a gallon of cheap wine.
And I was appalled at the price French Frank had paid--eighty
cents. EIGHTY
CENTS!
-- Standing on one leg three hours, to show off new-style strapped pants at 12 1/2
cents per leg per hour.............