The million pound banknote

'I'm changing my quarters. I will drop in and leave the new address.'

'Quite right, sir, quite right. One moment - let me show you out, sir. There - good day, sir, good day.'

Well, don't you see what was bound to happen? I drifted naturally into buying whatever I wanted, and asking for change. Within a week I was sumptuously equipped with all neccessary comforts and luxuries, and was housed in an expensive private hotel in Hanover Square. I took my dinners there, but for breakfast I stuck by Harris's humble feeding house, where I had got my first meal on my million-pound bill. I was the making of Harris. The fact had gone all abroad that the foreign crank who carried million-pound bills in his vest pocket was the patron saint of the place. That was enough. From being a poor, struggling, little hand-to-mouth enterprise, it had become celebrated, and overcrowded with customers.

Harris was so grateful that he forced loans upon me, and would not be denied; and so, pauper as I was, I had money to spend, and was living like the rich and the great. I judged that there was going to be a crash by and by, but I was in now and must swim across or drown.

Vocabulary:

Quarters: Where someone or something lives or works
Drop in: Make a quick unannounced visit
Sumptuous: Rich and luxurious
Humble: Having nothing to be proud about, and knowing it
The making of: The thing which allows something to become successful
Crank: Someone not quite sane. In modern English, usually bad-tempered about it
Pauper: A poor man