What say you , again ? '' `` Precisely what I said before , Mr. Brown , '' answered Peter Goldthwaite . `` And , as for castles in the air , mine may not be as magnificent as that sort of architecture , but perhaps as substantial , Mr. Brown , as the very respectable brick block with dry-goods stores , tailors ' shops and banking-rooms on the lower floor , and lawyers ' offices in the second story , which you are so anxious to substitute . '' `` And the cost , Peter ? Eh ? '' said Mr. Brown as he withdrew in something of a pet . `` That , I suppose , will be provided for off-hand by drawing a check on Bubble Bank ? '' John Brown and Peter Goldthwaite had been jointly known to the commercial world between twenty and thirty years before under the firm of Goldthwaite & Brown ; which copartnership , however , was speedily dissolved by the natural incongruity of its constituent parts . Since that event , John Brown , with exactly the qualities of a thousand other John Browns , and by just such plodding methods as they used , had prospered wonderfully and become one of the wealthiest John Browns on earth . Peter Goldthwaite , on the contrary , after innumerable schemes which ought to have collected all the coin and paper currency of the country into his coffers , was as needy a gentleman as ever wore a patch upon his elbow . The contrast between him and his former partner may be briefly marked , for Brown never reckoned upon luck , yet always had it , while Peter made luck the main condition of his projects , and always missed it . While the means held out his speculations had been magnificent , but were chiefly confined of late years to such small business as adventures in the lottery . Once he had gone on a gold-gathering expedition somewhere to the South , and ingeniously contrived to empty his pockets more thoroughly than ever , while others , doubtless , were filling theirs with native bullion by the handful . More recently he had expended a legacy of a thousand or two of dollars in purchasing Mexican scrip , and thereby became the proprietor of a province ; which , however , so far as Peter could find out , was situated where he might have had an empire for the same money -- in the clouds . From a search after this valuable real estate Peter returned so gaunt and threadbare that on reaching New England the scarecrows in the corn-fields beckoned to him as he passed by . `` They did but flutter in the wind , '' quoth Peter Goldthwaite . No , Peter , they beckoned , for the scarecrows knew their brother . At the period of our story his whole visible income would not have paid the tax of the old mansion in which we find him . It was one of those rusty , moss-grown , many-peaked wooden houses which are scattered about the streets of our elder towns , with a beetle-browed second story projecting over the foundation , as if it frowned at the novelty around it . This old paternal edifice , needy as he was , and though , being centrally situated on the principal street of the town , it would have brought him a handsome sum , the sagacious Peter had his own reasons for never parting with , either by auction or private sale .
There seemed , indeed , to be a fatality that connected him with his birthplace ; XXXXX , often as he had stood on the verge of ruin , and standing there even now , he had not yet taken the step beyond it which would have compelled him to surrender the house to his creditors .
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