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A member of the idle rich rumbled along a Jersey highway in his motor car. He approached an excavation where workmen were manœuvring cranes and hoists. At the side of the road lay a dying horse. It had fallen into a hole and two of its legs were broken. The workmen were waiting for the arrival of a policeman to put the suffering animal to death.
“I’ll save that horse,” decided the wealthy motorist. His decision was simply an idle whim. When the policeman came, the motorist had already bought the useless horse for a ten dollar bill. He procured an ambulance and had the animal removed to his own stable. He summoned the foremost veterinarians in New York and the crippled work horse was patched up. For weeks it hung suspended in a sling and finally the broken bones knitted and the horse hobbled about. The veterinarians demanded five thousand dollars for their work and were paid without complaint. In his stoutest days, the saved horse was worth no more than a hundred dollars.
A well known metropolitan spender has an annual bill of some ten thousand dollars for shoes alone. His order stands in every manufactory in America and Europe. Whenever a new style of men’s shoes is designed, a sample pair is immediately shipped to him. He cannot possibly wear a tenth of the shoes sent to him, but he has the satisfying knowledge that he is never behind the style.