The million pound banknote

He received it with a smile, one of those large smiles which goes all around over, and has folds in it, and wrinkles, and spirals, and looks like the place where you have thrown a brick in a pond; and then in the act of his taking a glimpse of the bill this smile froze solid, and turned yellow, and looked like those wavy, wormy spreads of lava which you find hardened on little levels on the side of Vesuvius.

I never before saw a smile caught like that, and perpetuated. The man stood there holding the bill, and looking like that, and the proprietor hustled up to see what was the matter, and said, briskly: 'Well, what's up? what's the trouble? What's wanting? Come, come; get him his change, Tod; get him his change.'

Tod retorted 'Get him his change! It's easy to say, Sir; but look at the bill yourself.' The proprietor took a look, gave a low, eloquent whistle, then made a dive for the pile of rejected clothing, and began to snatch it this way and that, talking all the time excitedly, and as if to himself;

'Sell an eccentric millionaire such an unspeakable suit as that! Tod's a fool - a born fool. Always doing something like this. Drives every millionaire away from this place, because he can't tell a millionaire from a tramp, and never could. Ah, here's the thing I am after. Please get those things off, Sir, and throw them in the fire.'

Vocabulary:

Glimpse: A quick look
Wormy: Long, thin and wriggly
Perpetuate: Hold in place
Hustle: To move in a busy way
Wanting: Here it means 'missing and needed'
Retort: Reply with some force
Eloquent: Full of meaning
Unspeakabl: Too horrible to mention