" To go to town, forty-five miles distant, we were obliged to hitchhike. In short, my earnings were just about to keep a goat alive.
[…]
Then one foggy day, when all the green in Nature sang out in chlorophylllic glee, there came a letter from Maurice Firodias. […] The letter was a long one, and as I skimmed through it, rapidly, my eye fell on this –

FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS "

― Henry Miller