The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade

Chapter 31: CHAPTER XXXI. A METAMORPHOSIS MORE SURPRISING THAN ANY IN OVID.

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A stranger boards a Mississippi steamer and adopts a succession of disguises to exploit, amuse, and probe the fellow travelers. The narrative unfolds as a series of vignettes in which assorted passengers engage with the impostor and with one another. Through shifting masks and pointed conversations the work examines trust, identity, hypocrisy, and the slipperiness of moral judgment. Satire, theatrical conceits, and philosophical parley are used to blur distinctions between confidence and sincerity. The episodic, interrogative tone resists tidy resolution, leaving ethical ambiguities and the question of who, if anyone, can be trusted.

CHAPTER XXXI.
A METAMORPHOSIS MORE SURPRISING THAN ANY IN OVID.

“In want of money!” pushing back his chair as from a suddenly-disclosed man-trap or crater.

“Yes,” naïvely assented the cosmopolitan, “and you are going to loan me fifty dollars. I could almost wish I was in need of more, only for your sake. Yes, my dear Charlie, for your sake; that you might the better prove your noble, kindliness, my dear Charlie.”

“None of your dear Charlies,” cried the other, springing to his feet, and buttoning up his coat, as if hastily to depart upon a long journey.

“Why, why, why?” painfully looking up.

“None of your why, why, whys!” tossing out a foot, “go to the devil, sir! Beggar, impostor!—never so deceived in a man in my life.”