The million pound banknote

Then came the climaxing stroke - the accolade, so to speak - which in a single instant transmuted the perishable dross of notoriety into the enduring gold of fame - Punch caricatured me! Yes, I was a made man now; my place was established. I might be joked about still, but reverently, not hilariously, not rudely; I could be smiled at, but not laughed at. The time for that had gone by. Punch pictured me dressed in rags, dickering with a Beefeater for the Tower of London. Well, you can imagine how it was with a young fellow who had never been taken notice of before, and now all of a sudden couldn't say a thing that wasn't taken up and repeated everywhere.

I couldn't leave the house without constantly overhearing the remark flying from lip to lip, 'There he goes; that's him!' couldn't take my breakfast without a crowd to look on; couldn't appear in an opera box without concentrating there the fire of a thousand opera glasses. Why, I just swam in glory all day long- that is the amount of it.

You know, I even kept my old suit of rags, and every now and then appeared in them, so as to have the old pleasure of buying trifles, and being insulted, and then shooting the scoffer dead with the million-pound bill. But I couldn't keep that up. The illustrated papers made the outfit so familiar that when I went out in it I was at once recognized and followed by a crowd, and if I attempted a purchase the man would offer me his whole shop on credit before I could pull my note on him.

Vocabulary:

Accolade: Formal recognition
Transmuted: Changed
Dross: Waste matter from industry
Punch: A famous British Magazine
Caricature: Exaggeration for fun
Made man: Someone whose reputation and career is secure
Dickering: Bargaining
Beefeater: A traditional guard at the Tower of London
Opera glasses: Small binoculars to bring the stage closer
Trifles: Small unimportant things
Scoffer: Someone who makes fun of a person or idea