George Barr McCutcheon 
Her Weight in Gold [PDF ebook] 

Collected here are a number of short stories by the popular American writer George Barr Mc Cutcheon (1866-1928). Mc Cutcheon is best known for his novels set the fictional Eastern European state of Graustark, and for his novel Brewster’s Millions which became a 1985 film starring Richard Pryor and John Candy. The included stories are: "Her Weight in Gold", "The Maid and the Blade", "Mr. Hamshaw’s Love Affair", "The Green Ruby", "The Gloaming Ghosts", "When Girl meets Girl", "Quiddlers Three", "The Late Mr. Taylor" and "The Ten Dollar Bill" "Well the question is: how much does she weigh?" asked Eddie Ten Eyck with satirical good humour. His somewhat flippant inquiry followed the heated remark of General Horatio Gamble, who, in desperation, had declared that his step- daughter, Martha, was worth her weight in gold. "I am not jesting, sir, " said the General with asperity. "Martha may not be as good-looking as – er – some girls that I’ve seen, but she is a jewel, just the same. The man who gets her for a wife will be a blamed sight luckier than the fellows who marry the brainless little fools we see trotting around like butterflies." (It was the first time that Eddie had heard of trotting butterflies.) "She’s a fine girl, " was his conciliatory remark. "She is pure gold, " said the General with conviction. "Pure gold, sir." "A nugget, " agreed Eddie expansively. "A hundred and eighty pound nugget, General. Why don’t you send her to a refinery?"