The Cobbler and the Millionaire

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This subject very amusingly shows the discontent of a poor man when suddenly made the possessor of wealth. The story is well rendered after La Fontaine's fable of like title. An industrious cobbler, content with his work and his life, lived neighbors to a rich man, who was surfeited with life's pleasures, tired of all things, restless, Oft-times ill and bothered by the noise of the collider's work. Distracted by the continual pegging, the financier finally sends for his neighbor, the workman, and offers him wealth enough to make it unnecessary for him to labor farther, on condition that he shall refrain absolutely from work. At first the cobbler is very pleased. He accepts the proffer, hoping to be very happy as a plutocrat, but he soon finds it hard to keep from his bench and unpleasant to explain to his old customers that he no longer needs to work. He becomes so nervous for fear of being robbed that he and his wife hear in every sound at night some robber approaching their store of wealth, and, finally spend entire nights in watching the treasure. Ere long the cobbler and his wife decide it is more wise for people to live the life to which they are trained and that wealth does not bring content. They return the gold to their wealthy neighbor, who soon hears the merry sound of the shoemaker's hammer. Unhappily, he orders his man to close the window that the echoes of honest labor may not disturb his rest.