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Page 10
CHAPTER II
"I warned ye," said Dan, as the drops fell thick and fast on the
dark, oiled planking. "Dad ain't noways hasty, but you fair earned
it. Pshaw! there's no sense takin' on so." Harvey's shoulders were
rising and falling in spasms of dry sobbing. "I know the feelin'.
First time Dad laid me out was the last--and that was my first trip.
Makes ye feel sickish an' lonesome. I know."
"It does," moaned Harvey. "That man's either crazy or drunk,
and--and I can't do anything."
"Don't say that to Dad," whispered Dan. "He's set agin all liquor,
an'--well, he told me you was the madman. What in creation made
you call him a thief? He's my dad."
Harvey sat up, mopped his nose, and told the story of the missing
wad of bills. "I'm not crazy," he wound up. "Only--your father has
never seen more than a five-dollar bill at a time, and my father
could buy up this boat once a week and never miss it."
"You don't know what the 'We're Here's' worth. Your dad must hev
a pile o' money. How did he git it? Dad sez loonies can't shake out
a straight yarn. Go ahead."
"In gold mines and things, West."
"I've read o' that kind o' business. Out West, too? Does he go
around with a pistol on a trick-pony, same ez the circus? They call
that the Wild West, and I've heard that their spurs an' bridles was
solid silver."
"You are a chump!" said Harvey, amused in spite of himself. "My
father hasn't any use for ponies. When he wants to ride he takes his
car."
"Haow? Lobster-car?"
"No. His own private car, of course. You've seen a private car
some time in your life?"
"Slatin Beeman he hez one," said Dan, cautiously. "I saw her at
the Union Depot in Boston, with three niggers hoggin' her run.",
(Dan meant cleaning the windows.) "But Slatin Beeman he owns
'baout every railroad on Long Island, they say, an' they say he's
bought 'baout ha'af Noo Hampshire an' run a line fence around her,
an' filled her up with lions an' tigers an' bears an' buffalo an'
crocodiles an' such all. Slatin Beeman he's a millionaire. I've
seen his car. Yes?"
"Well, my father's what they call a multi-millionaire, and he has
two private cars. One's named for me, the 'Harvey', and one for my
mother, the 'Constance'."
"Hold on," said Dan. "Dad don't ever let me swear, but I guess you
can. 'Fore we go ahead, I want you to say hope you may die if
you're lyin'."
"Of course," said Harvey.
"The ain't 'niff. Say, 'Hope I may die if I ain't speaking' truth."'
"Hope I may die right here," said Harvey, "if every word I've
spoken isn't the cold truth."
"Hundred an' thirty-four dollars an' all?" said Dan. "I heard ye
talkin' to Dad, an' I ha'af looked you'd be swallered up, same's
Jonah."
Harvey protested himself red in the face. Dan was a shrewd young
person along his own lines, and ten minutes' questioning convinced
him that Harvey was not lying--much. Besides, he had bound
himself by the most terrible oath known to boyhood, and yet he
sat, alive, with a red-ended nose, in the scuppers, recounting
marvels upon marvels.
"Gosh!" said Dan at last from the very bottom of his soul when
Harvey had completed an inventory of the car named in his honour.
Then a grin of mischievous delight overspread his broad face. "I
believe you, Harvey. Dad's made a mistake fer once in his life."
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