Digging for Gold

“What do you want to sell out for?” asked Benton.

“I have got tired of the place. It is too quiet for me. I want to go to San Francisco. There’s more life there, and more money can always be made in a city like that.”

“How has the restaurant been paying?” questioned Benton.

“I can’t complain of it. It has paid me about forty dollars a week, net; perhaps a little more.”

“I have been in the restaurant business myself,” continued Albert.

“Then you are just the right man to buy me out.”

“Will you sell out for the money I have in my pocket?”

“How much have you?”

“‘I have fifteen dollars in my inside pocket,’ as the song has it.”

Hardy shook his head.

“I want a thousand dollars for the place,” he said.

“I will buy it, and pay you on instalments,” said Benton.

“Well, I might agree to that for half the purchase money. Pay me five hundred dollars down, and the rest you can pay at, say, twenty dollars a week. I am sure that is a liberal offer.”

“I don’t think so. Besides, I haven’t got five hundred dollars.”

“Can’t you borrow it?”

“I don’t know.” And then it occurred to Benton that perhaps Tom Cooper and Grant might be induced to advance that sum of money.

“Well, perhaps so,” he resumed, after a pause.

“Find out, and then come and talk to me.”

“Won’t four hundred dollars do?”

“No. I shall need to take five hundred dollars with me to San Francisco.”

“Is this the best you can do?”

“Yes.”

“I will think of it, and let you know.”

Albert Benton walked thoughtfully out of the restaurant. He had tried gold-digging, and didn’t like it. His old business seemed to him more reliable, and this seemed a good opportunity to go back into it.

“Hardy hasn’t much enterprise,” he soliloquized. “If he can clear forty dollars a week, I shouldn’t be surprised if I could carry it up to sixty. I have never had a chance to show what I could do, always having had some one over me. I should just like to try it once.”

Benton waited till his two fellow boarders got home from their day’s work, and then opened the subject.

“I can tell you of a good investment for your money, Grant,” he said.

“How do you know I have any money to invest?”

“I suppose you have been making some, and you never spend any.”

“I never spend any foolishly, if that is what you mean.”

“You don’t seem to have much idea of enjoying life.”

“Not in your sense. I enjoy life in my own way.”

“I am glad you do, because you must have some money to lend me.”

“To lend you?”

“Yes; I have a chance to buy out a fine restaurant in the village, but must pay five hundred dollars down. I am almost sure I can clear sixty dollars a week, net profit, from it. You know yourself that I understand the business.”

“Yes, you ought to understand it.”

“I understand it better than digging for gold. I soon tired of that.”

“It is tiresome work,” admitted Grant.

“And doesn’t pay much.”

“It used to pay better – in the early days, I should think.”

“Well, Grant, what do you say? I can give you the restaurant as security, and pay you back at the rate of twenty dollars a week. I’ll pay you one per cent. a month interest.”

“How much of the sum are you going to furnish yourself?”

“Why,” said Benton, embarrassed, “I am not so fixed that I can pay anything at present. I’ve got an old uncle, over seventy years old, who is sure to leave me five thousand dollars, so that is additional security.”

“I haven’t five hundred dollars to lend.”

“I didn’t suppose you had, but your friend Cooper could chip in with you on the loan, and just draw his one per cent. a month regular. If that isn’t enough, I would pay fifteen per cent. It would pay me, for it would put me into a good business.”

“I don’t know how Cooper will feel about it, Mr. Benton, but I prefer to keep what little money I have in my own hands.”

“I think you might oblige a friend,” said Benton crossly.

“There’s a limit to friendship. I shall need my money for my own use.”

Cooper said the same, and Benton saw that he must get the money in some other way. He dropped the subject, in order to avert suspicion, and began to consider the scheme which all the time he had in view to fall back upon.

The next day, when the coast was clear, he went upstairs, and entered Grant’s room. There was no lock on the door, for in California people were not suspicious.