I do not pay
for the playing of billiards, for I play on your table; but still the
money goes. Fishing on the reef is only a rich man's pleasure. It is
shocking, the cost of hooks and cotton line. Yes; it is necessary that
we be partners by the law. I need the money. I shall get it from the
head clerk in the office."
So the papers were made out and recorded. A year later I was compelled
to complain.
"Charley," said I, "you are a wicked old fraud, a miserly skinflint, a
miserable land-crab. Behold, your share for the year in all our
partnership has been thousands of dollars. The head clerk has given me
this paper. It says that in the year you have drawn just eighty-seven
dollars and twenty cents."
"Is there any owing me?" he asked anxiously.
"I tell you thousands and thousands," I answered.
His face brightened, as with an immense relief.
"It is well," he said. "See that the head clerk keeps good account of
it. When I want it, I shall want it, and there must not be a cent
missing.
"If there is," he added fiercely, after a pause, "it must come out of
the clerk's wages."
And all the time, as I afterward learned, his will, drawn up by
Carruthers, and making me sole beneficiary, lay in the American consul's
safe.
Pages:
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215