Posted Monday morning, August 3, 2020.
Detail from the cover illustration for the Penguin Classics edition of “The Pastures of Heaven” by John Steinbeck. Illustration by Mick Wiggins.
Cheating ethically is in fact a thing...
Edward Wicks had a blunt, brown face and small, cold eyes almost devoid of lashes. He was known as the trickiest man in the valley. He drove hard deals and was never so happy as when he could force a few cents more out of his peaches than his neighbors did. When he could, he cheated ethically in horse trades, and because of his astuteness he gained the respect of the community, but strangely he became no richer. However, he liked to pretend that he was laying away money in securities. At school board meetings he asked the advice of the other members about various bonds, and in this way managed to give the impression that his savings were considerable. The people of the valley called him “Shark” Wilks.
“Shark?” they said, ‘Oh, I’d guess he was worth around twenty thousand, maybe more. He’s nobody’s fool.”
And the truth was that Shark had never had more than five hundred dollars at one time in this life.
---from”The Pastures of Heaven” by John Steinbeck
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