The Toast of New York

And there it is, ladies and gentlemen,

another $10 gold piece, and in it goes.

Now you've seen me place 10 gold pieces in this pile of soap.

Gold-the thing that people dream about, they fight over it.

The greatest power in the world is genuine gold.

Buy a bar of soap and you get $10 to boot.

I'm not going to ask you to pay $10 for a cake of this soap,

nor $5.00 a cake, no, sir.

I'm passing this cake of soap among you for $1.00.

Now who's the first lady or gentleman going to take a chance?

I'll take one.

There you are, thank you very much, there's your soap.

Now, who's next? Who's next?

I'll take one, mister!

All right, there you are.

No, not that one, mister-

give me the one in the other hand.

All right, there. Thank you.

Now, who's next, who's next?

Looky here, mister, I think y'all's a fake.

Well, I've been in business all my life, and I've never been called a fake before.

Y'all ain't got no gold pieces in that soap.

I got one!

Wha?

Does that look as if I was a faker?

Well, gee whillikens, ain't I dumb?

I'll take one, mister.

Give me one!

I want one!

Take my dollar, mister!

Quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet!

They've fired on fort sumter, and war's declared!

What'd you say, brother?

Don't you call me brother, 'cause you're a yank!

And we've declared war against all Yankees.

We're gonna run 'em all out of town and hang every one of them we can catch.

If you can't get 'em out, I'll get somebody else what can!

Come on, jim-let's get out of here.

They're in cahoots!

They are yanks!

Let's run 'em out of town!

Ya!

Which way we going?

North.

North? I hope so.

He went thataway!

Come on!

There's a bunch of men on horseback following us, boss!

You better hurry!

Come on!

They're gaining on us, jim! Put on some steam!

If we can get over that bridge, jim,

we'll be in the north across the mason-Dixon line!

Whoa!

Good-bye, you-all!

Whoa!

What do you sell your cotton for, friend?

$2.00 a pound.

But you can't get any more through from the south.

What can you buy it for down there?

12 cents.

Thanks.

Well, I'm sure glad to get out of that land of cotton.

Come on, boys, let's go.

No, wait a minute.

I'm thinking about that cotton.

We're suckers for running away from a fortune.

All the cotton mills are up north,

but they haven't got any cotton.

Why, we could get all the cotton we want for 12 cents a pound

and smuggle it through.

In that way, we'd be helping the south by buying it

and helping the north by selling it.

And helping ourselves to $1.88 for every pound

we can lay our hands on.

Wait a minute-i ain't going back down south there for no $1.88.

You're going up north, Luke.

You're going to drive to Boston

as fast as you can get there and open up an office.

Nick and me are going back to Dixie,

and we're gonna ship you all the cotton we can lay our hands on.

You know, jim,

I'm just crazy enough to go with you,

but how are we going to get back across that line?

You-all know, folks,

I'm on my way to savannah, Georgia, to join my regiment,

and I'm giving my good English friend here, sir Nicholas Boyd,

safe conduct.

Ah, yes, of course.

And I'm buying cotton for dear old England,

eh, what?

You sure is.

You sure is making me mighty nervous, you sure is.

You-all's price is right with me.

I'll take your whole doggone crop.

I say, Fraser,

you better move all this cotton onto the dock immediately

and make some bally room for the 200 bales coming in in the morning.

Perkins, go up to the stonington railroad,

tell them to run 20 freight cars onto our dock before 3:00.

We're gonna put a lot of money in the bank today for jim and nick.

Do you smell it? What?

New England. We're home again.

Jim! Nick!

Oh, hello, nick!

Luke!

Oh, jim.

Gee, you haven't changed a bit.

Neither have you.

My, you're a sight for sore eyes.

Our general manager.

Gee, jim, I'm so happy.

I can't wait, I've got a bet on with jim.

Tell me-what were the total profits

on all that cotton we shipped up here?

$821,000.46 in gold.

821 thou?

Why, that's 100,000 more than we expected.

How did you do it?

Luke-

you're the eighth wonder of the world.

Well, whenever I was in a fix, jim,

I'd just try to figure out what you'd do.

I want to know.

Trying to flatter me, eh?

Well, I was looking and listening around.

About a year ago, I found out

these smart Boston bankers was swapping golr money.

Ney.

$400 in gold was fetching $1,000 in greenbacks.

Sure. Those bankers were on the inside track.

They knew that when the war was over,

the government would stand back of that paper money.

Well, I says to myself, I says, "jim fisk wouldn't stand by

"and watch that gold rot in that bank, would he?

"Of course he wouldn't. Why, jim fisk's smarter

than any back-bay banker that ever banked!"

Wait a minute, wait a minute-

you changed our gold to greenbacks?

Uh-huh.

Jehoshaphat!

Did I do right, jim?

Did you do right?

It's more than $2 million!

$2 million?

We'll buy the stonington railroad!

2 million cartwheels!

Wait a minute-that ain't all.

Huh? What?

Well...

when I got all this money together,

it looked like an awful lot of greenbacks,

so I said, "what would jim think about this?"

"Shucks, to a big man like him it'd look like a wad of lettuce.

"Why, jim would say it's a sacrilegious crime

to let that lettuce lay there and go to seed,"

so... well, I bought bonds.

Bonds? Bonds?

I hope they're good bonds.

Many a man's cut his throat

on gilt-edged securities you know, Luke.

But these are government bonds, boss.

As good as the mint.

No, they ain't, boss.

What?

I've known you all my life, jim,

and you've never once lied to me.

No, Luke, but what are you getting at?

Did you know all the time that the north was going to win the war?

Of course I did. Everybody did.

Well, why'd you keep writing me that the confederates was gonna?

Certainly-we knew their secret service

was opening our letters,

so we always had to tell you the south was going to win.

Well, it got me all kerflummoxed.

If I hadn't have believed in you, jim,

we'd have had more than $2 million,

but... oh, I put it all in confederate bonds.

There they are.

Confederate bonds?

They're not worth a nickel.

They're blowing like dead leaves down the streets of Richmond.

For 3 and 1/2 years we lived on boiled leather and grits,

risked our necks dodging tar,

feathers, and bullets...

always one jump ahead of a firing squad.

We even had to learn another language.

And now we get paid off in confederate bonds.

$2 million worth of nothing.

Well...

hey-hey, where are you going?

What's the matter with you?

Aw, the way I ruined you both and all.

That was my fault, wasn't it?

I shouldn't have lied to you.

Come on back here and sit down, come on.

Say, what are you up to?

I've got a chill, I thought I'd liven up the fire.

Wait a minute-

these cost us $821,000.