Death and Taxes
Date: 2020-01-12T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short stories; Love stories; Ghosts -- Fiction; Painters -- Fiction

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Title: Death and Taxes

Author: H. A. Hartzell

Illustrator: Dyas

Release date: January 12, 2020 [eBook #61158]
Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61158

Credits: Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEATH AND TAXES ***

Remorseless? Not a bit of
it, no matter what they say!
Here's the genuine, inside,
light-hearted story of——

DEATH AND TAXES

by H. A. HARTZELL

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

"It's a crime, Your Honor," said the young man with the dreamy eyes and paint-smeared sport-shirt. "The Council not only proposes tearing down this picturesque landmark, but would thereby destroy the home of our only local ghost."

"Really, Mr. Masterson!" The mayor smiled to show he knew Jerry Masterson was only kidding, then brandished a State Highway Commission report recommending that the antiquated Waukeena Lighthouse be demolished. "Mr. Masterson, we respect your feelings as an artist, and are well aware of the local superstition regarding the ghost of Captain MacGreggor, but this building is over seventy years old and needs expensive repairs. The financial burden is too great for our metropolis of less than fifteen hundred souls. The State has disavowed responsibility, and—"

"Your Honor!"

"The chair recognizes Mr. Higgins."

"As president of the Historical Society, I wish to state we vigorously oppose the wrecking of this building. One by one, our landmarks have fallen. Are we to hand down to our children a community without pride of ancestry? Are we—?"

"Your Honor," bellowed another voice. "As a member of the Taxpayers League...."

For two hours, sentiment battled hotly with double-entry bookkeeping. Then the City Council expressed its deep regrets to the Historical Society—and unanimously accepted the bid of Sam Schultz Salvage Company. Mr. Schultz handed the Council his check for five hundred dollars and was authorized to begin wrecking immediately.

"First thing tomorrow morning," Mr. Schultz promised.

Tomorrow morning! As he walked into the spring night, toward the old, decaying house where he lived alone, Jerry Masterson felt sadness. His own difficulties had prepared him to admit life was geared to financial considerations. But things had come to a pretty pass when even a ghost was not safe from dollars and cents. "Poor Captain Wully," he said without realizing he spoke aloud.

"Aye, aye," said a voice. "Poor Wully MacGreggor. As a ghost in good standing, a dues-paying member of Asmodeus Local of the United Lighthouse Haunters of America, Wully never done nothin' to deserve this. Evicted! Got a smoke, matey?"

Jerry Masterson did a double-take. Out of reflex courtesy, he proffered a cigarette and was about to strike a match when his companion reached slightly to the left, where several coals glowed in mid-air. Selecting one, the stranger said, "Thank you, Junior. You can go now." He turned, lit Jerry's cigarette and his own.

"All right, joker," said Jerry. "Show me how you did it and I'll show you a couple of card tricks and a disappearing penny routine."

"Later," said the stranger. "Right now, matey, my sails is draggin' and I need spiritual reinforcement—liquid. And you're buying."

"There's a fifth of Scotch in my studio, but I'm not pouring for any phony tricksters. I've been saving it till I sold a canvas."

"Scotch," sighed the stranger ecstatically. "Shades of the Loch Ness Monster! Quit scratching, Gertrude."

"Gertrude?"

"My cat—she's black. A handsome beastie if you overlook a hole in her head. A twenty-two caliber hole. Gertrude, materialize for the nice man."

Nothing happened, and Jerry diplomatically sought to ease a situation that was rapidly becoming embarrassing. "Maybe she's bashful."

"Not Gertrude. Just temperamental. She could materialize if she wanted to. She doesn't want to. Now take Junior...."

"Junior?"

"He's the conscientious type. Tries too hard, poor boy."

"About that Scotch," said Jerry. "You don't think maybe a couple of cups of black coffee...."

The stranger's face registered horror—and trust betrayed. "For shame, laddie. To be insulted in my darkest hour! Me, Captain Wully MacGreggor!"

"Sure. You're Wully MacGreggor—and I'm Napoleon."

"Watch."

There was nothing to watch. The stranger had disappeared. A disembodied voice said, "Now about that Scotch? If Waukeena light is being torn down tomorrow, I'll be homeless. I've got a lot of haunting to do in the little time that's left. And here we stand, waggin' our jaws."

Jerry's first impulse was to run like hell. "But I don't believe in ghosts!" His voice sounded.

"Of course you do. If you didn't, you couldn't have seen me."

He'd heard of self-hypnosis—apparently the session with the Mayor had upset him. "All right, so you're Wully MacGreggor. Why pick on me?"

"Because I like you," said the ghost. "You said a kind word for me to the City Council and I'd like to do something nice for you."

"If you can't help yourself, I don't see how you're going to be much help to me, but what've I got to lose?" He was too numb to worry further. Ghosts, yet...!

Next morning, Jerry Masterson awoke with a hangover. He dimly remembered floating lights, red, yellow, blue and green. He remembered Captain Wully scaring a couple of lovers with noises the young lady described as "something like bagpipes in an echo chamber." And he seemed to remember that, toward the end of the evening, Gertrude had deigned to materialize—along with a headless black ox and a white stag.

He shook his head and reached for the aspirin. "As of now," he promised himself, "I'm on the wagon." He seemed to recall a snake too, a seven-headed snake with a gleaming carbuncle in the middle head. Permanently on the wagon! A scraping noise came from above. He listened. The noise occurred again. It seemed to emanate from the tower room on the third floor. He raced up the winding Victorian staircase, on up the narrow stairs to the attic, and stopped.

From behind the tower room door, came thin, eerie skirling of bagpipes.

"Hey, you in there," he called.

"Matey!" boomed Captain Wully's voice. "Come on in."

Captain Wully was seated on an old sea-chest, the bagpipes still tucked under his arm. "Hope my practicing didn't disturb you. I play second bagpipe in the banshee band."

"But the scraping noise...."

"My sea-chest. I had a little trouble getting you home by cockcrow, and I had to move the sea-chest on overtime. I want to say right now it was right decent of you to offer me a home on such short acquaintance. I appreciate it, and I promise to show my—"

"Look," said Jerry. "All this time I was being so big-hearted, did I also say I was going to have to sell the house for non-payment of taxes?"

"You didn't. If I'd a-known that, I'd put you wise to grabbing Celeste's carbuncle. It's good luck."

"It didn't bring you any luck."

"I'm not eligible. Employees, relatives etc."

"Why can't I get it now?"

"Too late. Celeste only materializes once every seven years. Those canvases you mentioned. For sale?"

"No bidders, and the critics all agree. Competent draftsmanship, highly finished technique—but carefully unimaginative, middle-class."

"The pictures—where are they now?"

"Downstairs. I was going to crate them today, and send them to the Art Festival at Northport, but I've got the shakes too bad."

Captain Wully pushed back the tam on his head, scratched his balding dome. "I've got it. You catch yourself a nap, matey. I'll crate the pictures for you and batten down the hatches all nice an' ship-shape."

Jerry Masterson, when he draped himself over the bumpy carvings on the studio love seat, intended to take only a quick forty winks. But the morning was well spent when he awakened, stiff and cramped. Two sturdy crates stood near the door and, from the skylight end of the studio, wafted a rich fragrance of latakia. Captain Wully drew deeply on a Scotch briar filled with Jerry's private blend of tobacco, waved his pipe toward the easel and said, "A right bonnie lass, matey. Your betrothed?"

Jerry shook his head dolefully. "Her family are Covered Wagon. You've no idea what that means in a small town like this. My uncle lived here fifteen years and was still a 'newcomer' when he died and left me the house. I've been here two years, but that's a Johnny-come-lately to the Higginses. Her name's Heather, and I doubt if she knows I'm alive."

Captain Wully twirled his mustache, which curled luxuriantly at either end and was of an improbable shade Jerry classified as Hunter's Pink. So was his beard. "What did you say her name was?"

"Heather Higgins."

"You sighed the second time you said it, too. I just wanted to be sure."

Jerry crossed to the unfinished canvas. "Hair like sunshine on slightly oxidized copper. Eyes blue like the sea where it meets the horizon on a summer day."

"Gertrude!" yelled Captain Wully.

From the turbulence of the air current which marked Gertrude's passing, Jerry decided the invisible cat had been in a hurry.

"And who are you, and what are you doing here?" Captain Wully yelled at a second slipstream.

Distinctly audible was a high pitched caterwauling. In addition, there was a sound that made Jerry's curly hair crawl—the baying of a wolf?

"I better look into this," Captain Wully muttered and dashed outside. As he reached the doorway, his figure melted into transparency, then into air.

Jerry loaded the crated paintings into his car and took them to the express office. They wouldn't sell—they never did. But he couldn't afford to pass up the chance that they might.

When he returned home, there was no sign of Captain Wully, only a few paper candy wrappers on the floor. He started to pick them up, but remembered he wanted to imprison a highlight on Heather Higgins's nose and forgot the papers.

Someone had been into his paints. A tube of Payne's gray had been pressed dry. The cap was off the gamboge, and a new tube of bice green had been squeezed in the middle. Nor had the intruder bothered to scrape the palette, which gleamed with puddles of color.

A dab of ivory, the hint of rose madder and a suspicion of cadmium yellow fused under his brush tip. Creative fury struck him, and he failed to notice a figure that paused at the outside front gate. The figure stooped, picked up something, then carefully scanned the inside walkway. Here, too, she picked up something. She stooped momentarily on the front porch, and again in the hallway.

Then Heather Higgins stood in the studio. Her gaze swept the floor, and she bent over to pick up a candy wrapper.

"You don't have to do that," Jerry said. "I was getting around to it—eventually."

She whirled to face him. Her eyes turned from azure to ultramarine. "You might tell me what's going on around here!"

"Suppose you tell me. I'm still trying to catch up with it myself."

"Thief!"

"Thief?"

"Stealing Scotch whiskey and my new plaid skirt! But you made a mistake on the rum butter toffee. I trailed the wrappers."

The Scotch whiskey and rum toffee Jerry could see a reason for—but not the plaid skirt. "So help me, I'm innocent."

"So you're innocent!" She dashed to a corner behind the easel and snatched a plaid skirt from the floor.

"You'll just have to believe me. I had nothing to do with it."

"Oh no?"

"Look at me. Do I look like a criminal?"

As she looked her expression softened slightly, but she said, "I always picked the wrong picture in psychology tests. It's you innocent looking fellows that always turn out to be the crooks."

Jerry tried his best to look desperate. The result was too much for Heather Higgins, who laughed.

"Hold it," Jerry said. "I want to catch your eyes."

He grabbed his brush and made several quick strokes on the canvas.

"Why," she said, "it looks like me—a little. But I'm not that pretty."

"You are. And it'd look more like you if I didn't have to do it from memory."

And that was how Heather Higgins reluctantly happened to promise Jerry Masterson she'd return next morning for a sitting. She left, and Jerry was eating dinner when Captain Wully walked in to the whistled measures of Comin' Through the Rye.

"Rye!" said Jerry. "You? Rye?"

"I borrowed her old man's Scotch, if that's what you're gettin' at. And if you think I enjoyed eatin' all that candy just to leave a trail—I hope I don't see another piece of candy for three hundred years."

"Just to satisfy my curiosity," Jerry pleaded, "where does the plaid skirt come in?"

"The MacGreggor tartan? I needed a kilt."

"All of a sudden you need a kilt. Why?"

"It's a long story. But first—" he reached into a cupboard and produced Jerry's safety razor—"do you mind if I borrow this? And where do you keep the scissors?"

It took fifteen minutes to locate the scissors.

"We were discussing a kilt," Jerry prompted.

"If a body kiss a body, need a body cry," sang Captain Wully's baritone.

But, eventually, Captain Wully and the scissors were seated at the table behind a round magnifying mirror. "It begins with Gertrude. You remember how she scooted through the studio this afternoon with a werewolf after her?"

"How stupid of me not to realize."

"I felt Gertrude needed help. I caught up with the werewolf and gave him a piece of my mind. 'Pretty small potatoes,' I says, 'when a werewolf chases cats. You must be pretty second-rate to have fallen so low. A regular lamb in wolf's clothing.' 'I'll have you know,' he says, 'I'm pretty hot stuff. Related to Dracula on my mammy's side, and to Frankenstein on my pappy's.'"

The scissors snipped rapidly, and bits of pink mustache littered the unswept floor.

"'A renegade,' I says. 'Your family must be awfully proud of you. Chasing cats!' Ouch—" as the scissors slipped. "I says, 'Where do you live?' And he says, 'Down the road a piece. I'm lapdog for an Indian princess.' 'I think,' I says, usin' my head real quick like, 'I better see you home and see what your mistress has to say about this.'"

The mustache having been whittled to a tailored toothbrush. Captain Wully started on his beard. "You should see her, laddie. A real Indian princess, left over from a Lovers Leap. Bein' four hundred years old, she's real aristocracy and doesn't mingle with younger ghosts, which is why I never seen her before. Myself, I'm three score and hardly in her class. Although I must say she took a shine to me. But Indian braves don't wear beards."

Captain Wully put down the razor and revealed that he too was beardless. "Sporran, silver buckles and all the fixin's I got in my sea-chest—but my kilt went down wi' my ship."

When Captain Wully realized Heather Higgins had taken the plaid skirt home, he was inconsolable.

Heather Higgins kept her appointment to sit next morning. She was greeted at the mailbox by a subdued young man, who hastily shoved in his pocket a letter promising drastic action in the matter of "tax liens against property situate, to wit, etc."

"The oddest thing has happened," she said.

And Jerry knew. "The plaid skirt is gone again."

She gave him a chilly look. "See here! For a young man who claims to know nothing about—"

"It's my handyman," he babbled. "My handyman's a kleptomaniac."

"Lem Butler's the only handyman in town. Don't try to tell me Lem—"

"Since the person concerned is progressing toward a cure, I can't mention names. Couldn't you let me pay for the skirt?" It took a lot of fast talking, and it took time—but he finally diverted her attention.

She was a patient model. He quickly blocked in the flowing waves of her hair. But a listening look had come over her. Jerry listened too.

Down the stairwell drifted muted notes of a bagpipe, striving to adapt its chromatic limitations to 'Indian Love Call.' Another instrument was audible also.

"Funny thing about this house," he said. "When I first moved in, I used to think I heard bagpipes."

"Accompanied by a glockenspiel?"

"Is that what it is?"

The upper half of a very elderly gentleman bobbed in.

"Junior!" bawled Captain Wully from the stairs.

"Leave me alone," pleaded the elderly gentleman. "Lemme concentrate."

Captain Wully dashed in. "For shame, Junior. Stealing!"

Junior's eyes filled with tears. "Just one more nip, and I know I could have relaxed enough to finish materializing."

Heather's fascinated gaze wavered between the bottomless Junior and Captain Wully's kilt. The kilt had a zipper placket exactly like a lady's skirt. "I think I'm losing my mind," she said.

Jerry Masterson attempted to explain the inexplicable. He recounted events of the preceding several days and concluded, "No matter what you think, you couldn't see him if you didn't believe."

"What about the glockenspiel?" she asked weakly.

"That's Red Skeleton," said Captain Wully. "He uses a couple of ball-peen hammers on his ribs. We was tunin' up to serenade Pocahauntus."

"The cat," said Heather. "She's left out."

"Oh, no, she ain't. Gertrude sings coloratura."

"That even I don't believe," said Jerry.

Junior's upper half poised before the easel, and he flourished a brush. "Just a touch about the eyes. And another here." He flicked at the mouth.

"Get away from there!" yelled Jerry.

Junior burst into tears again. "I was only trying to help. Besides, it did need—"

"Well, I'll be...." Jerry looked at the canvas. "Junior was right."

"About Gertrude," insisted Captain Wully. "If you don't believe it, why don't you come serenadin' with us, you and Miss Heather?"

Jerry looked inquiringly at Heather.

"I'll hate myself if I do," she said.

"Then we won't go."

"But I'll hate myself worse if I don't."

He called that evening to take her to the serenade, and met her family. Mr. Higgins was very pleasant. Mrs. Higgins was very pleasant. But Jerry was uncomfortably aware of a large photograph on the mantle. The photograph was of a young man, and it was not pleasant. Its eyes followed Heather Higgins possessively. The photograph's tailored suit intimated its pockets were not lined with tax liens.

Mrs. Higgins noticed Jerry's interest. "That's Wesley Tatom."

"Of the First National Bank Tatoms," said Mrs. Higgins.

"His great grandfather was Ephraim Tatom," said Mrs. Higgins.

Ephraim Tatom, so Jerry gathered in the next half hour, had practically blazed the Oregon Trail single-handed.

"Wesley is attending the State Bankers Convention right now," said Mr. Higgins.

Mrs. Higgins gave Jerry a meaningful look. "We're very fond of dear, sweet Wesley," she said.

Jerry was understandably relieved when it came time to depart.

As for the serenade, Gertrude was in fine voice. Her words were incomprehensible, but no more so than foreign opera. Captain Wully puffed through Indian Love Call and a pibroch or two on the pipes, ably assisted by Red Skeleton on the glockenspiel and Junior on the mouth-harp.

Princess Pocahauntus was impressed by Captain Wully's full dress. She fingered the flowing shoulder plaid, tsk-tsking over the fineness of such a blanket. And the silver buckles—only a big chief would possess such wealth.

Gertrude bristled, and Oscar, the werewolf, dashed up with a limp and furry trophy, which he laid at the princess' feet.

"What's that?" Heather gasped.

"A sidehill gouger," explained Pocahauntus. "See?"

She put the little animal upright, or as nearly upright as circumstances permitted, for the gouger's left legs were three inches shorter than his right ones. Reaching into her reticule, she produced a couple of artistically carved bone pegs, which she fastened to the abbreviated left legs. "Prosthetics. Relics of our last gouger, who migrated to Switzerland."

"Somebody ought to write a book," mused Heather.

"Lots of books have been written," said Pocahauntus, "but not one from the 'inside.' What we spirits need is a John Gunther. Now take the subject of Lovers Leaps. More twaddle has been written about—"

"I've done a couple of regional articles for the Covered Wagon Quarterly, but nobody wants to print my historical fiction," said Heather. "What about Lovers Leaps?"

"Now take my own. I was really running away from a greasy warrior. He chased me to the cliff edge and, in my girlish innocence, I jumped. What price virtue!"

"Too bad I wasn't around," mourned Captain Wully. "I'd a-caught you."

"If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't jump." Her black eyes flashed, and she drew herself up regally. "I'd push that feather-headed Casanova off instead."

Then, graciously, she suggested barbecuing a salmon over the open fire, but Heather was afraid it would take too long and her parents might worry. So she and Jerry excused themselves and left Captain Wully to his courting. As Jerry walked Heather up the front steps, the scent of lilacs was an invitation to romance, the moon a lover's promise.

"Good night," said Heather. "It's been such fun."

Her handclasp carried a hint of finality that went beyond words, and Jerry said, "Been?"

"Wesley gets back tomorrow."

Without being told, Jerry knew that Heather's portrait would have to be finished from memory. Any man worthy of the name, Jerry told himself, would have argued the point—unless he was broke and jobless and had a tax lien in his pocket.

He tried to work on her picture next morning, sought to imprison the laughter of her eyes, the song of her lips. But then he realized that the laughter was for somebody else. The song too.

From above came a few experimental notes on the glockenspiel. Presently Junior's mouth harp joined in. The melody staggered uncertainly, finally emerged as Mendelssohn's Wedding March.

Jerry threw down his brush and left the house. He walked toward the lighthouse. That once stately saltbox had already lost its lensed cupola and most of its siding. He watched for a long time as the Sam Schultz Salvage Company pried board from board and piled all in a stack of jack-straws. Maybe he could go to work for Sam Schultz and make enough to pay off the taxes. And, if he observed all the Horatio Alger niceties, maybe some day he'd own the company and could seek Heather Higgins' hand in marriage—only to discover she had long since married Wesley.

He walked along the beach. Climbing to a jutting promontory, he watched waves break against the rocks below. Why not throw himself into the sea? He could become a ghost, and maybe find a lady ghost, and....

He went home and forced himself to work on Heather Higgins' portrait. He filled an entire sketch pad with brief line drawings of her until, late at night, he finally fell asleep in his chair. He awakened to broad daylight—and the whistling of the postman.

The letter was from Eloise Wright, Chairman of the Northport Art Festival, and concerned his canvases.

Ellis is positively dithy-rambic! Claims you've caught a hauntingly spiritual quality, and wants to buy the storm canvas for his San Francisco galleries. Barret, the Chicago Barret, is lyrical about the spectral lights and shadows, and is writing his New York dealer about a showing. Have sold four canvases. Enclose certified check—

Jerry reached for a chair. Four canvases? His asking price for four canvases had never come to any such figure as the check represented. The letter contained a postscript.

Barret is out of his head over "Gertrude." Impressionism at its finest, with an eerie, imaginative quality unsurpassed by any American artist. Soul of the eternally feminine, as typified by a cat with a hole in the head. Social satire in oil. Picture not priced. He asks what will you take within reason? One thousand?

Jerry was sure of only one thing. He'd never painted any picture of Gertrude. There was, however, the matter of that tube of bice green squeezed in the middle, and the gamboge left capless. He ran to the stairwell and yelled for Captain Wully, who presently appeared.

"I have here a letter—"

"I didn't do it," Captain Wully protested. "'Twas Junior touched up the paintings. And 'twas Junior painted Gertrude. Me? All I did was help Junior dry the paint and boost your prices a wee muckle."

"How much?"

"By nothing at all, you might say. A zero on the end?"

Jerry looked at the check. "I feel like I've been obtaining money under false pretenses. Junior doesn't even get any credit."

"But he does. Every one of those paintings was signed 'J. Masterson-Junior.'"

"I feel more honest about banking the check," said Jerry.

When he made out his deposit slip and totaled his bank balance, Jerry reflected how quickly an inferiority complex can melt in financial sunshine. He made a brief stop at the post office, where he mailed a check to the county assessor. He then headed straight for Heather Higgins' front door.

She had company.

"Glad to know you." Jerry acknowledged introduction to Wesley Tatom and stared with helpless fascination at the latter's necktie—of MacGreggor plaid.

"You arrived just in time to give me a little moral support," said Heather breathlessly.

"Now, Heather, we mustn't bore Masterson with our personal difficulties."

"I've started a story about Oscar the werewolf, but Wesley thinks—"

Wesley interrupted. "I'm looking at it from a business standpoint. Some day I'll step into my father's shoes at the bank. And what would the Board of Directors think of a bank president's wife who wrote claptrap about werewolves and spare-rib glockenspiels?"

"I doubt if they'd think anything at all—particularly if it paid well," said Jerry, and stared at Wesley Tatom's tie. The knot had begun to ease gently.

"If she thinks she wants to write, why can't she stick to covered wagons, and—"

"How stuffy of you!" said Heather.

Wesley Tatom felt uncertainly of his tie, tightened the knot.

"As a matter of curiosity," Jerry addressed his rival, "what makes you so sure Heather is going to marry you?"

"It's one of those taken-for-granted matters. We've gone together since—say! What business is it of yours, anyway!"

Now Heather, too, was watching Wesley's necktie.

"I don't think women like to be taken for granted," Jerry said.

One end of the necktie became longer and longer as its opposite end shortened. With a final but quiet jerk, the necktie came free, hesitated for a moment opposite Wesley's belt buckle, then folded itself neatly and floated away.

Heather giggled. "Were you laughing at me?" Wesley demanded,

"Heather," said Jerry, "will you marry me?"

In the free-for-all that followed, nobody settled anything.

All that occurred some time ago, of course. Meanwhile, what collector hasn't heard of J. Masterson-Junior, whose canvases are lauded for their "other world" quality? And, if you have children, you probably know by heart the little book chronicling the fortunes and misfortunes of Oscar, the werewolf who fainted at the sight of blood. And there's Harriet, the hodag. And Gary, the stone-eating gyascutus. And Robert, the sidehill gouger.

Recently in print is a story of Oscar's love for Vi, the Vitiated Vampire.

Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Masterson are widely respected. She writes the books. He illustrates them in his spare time. Such a delightfully zany couple! Always joking about a Scottish sea captain who lives in the attic and is married to an Indian princess.

No wonder the Masterson children are overly imaginative—warning their playmates not to sit on Gertrude, not to step on Oscar's tail. But all kids go through a phase like that. Only a few of them are lucky enough to grow up and make money out of it—lots of highly respectable money—like the Mastersons.

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