“I’ll bet,” says I, “we aren’t going to like it.”
“The harder they make things, the more credit to us if we beat them,” says Catty.
Now that was just like him. He kind of liked to have things hard, and to have to work like the dickens and puzzle his head. He said anybody could do a thing that was easy, but it took a regular fellow to pull through a tough job. Maybe that was so, but I says to him: “You can have all the honor and credit that’s tied up to one of these tough propositions, but just give me plain, easy sailing when there’s a treasure in sight. I want to be sure of those diamonds and pearls, and no monkey business.”
“I never heard,” says he, “of anybody getting a treasure easy. In every book I ever read the treasure hunters had to work and fight and had an awful time before they got what they were after.”
“That’s all right to read about,” says I, “but when it comes to the actual thing with me in it, I’d as soon it wasn’t so interesting. Nope, just hand me my treasure on a silver plate, and I’ll take it without a kick.”
“Fine treasure hunter you are,” says he. “That’s against all the rules. Why, a treasure you just stumbled onto, and then walked off with without any trouble, wouldn’t seem like a treasure at all.”
“It would spend like a treasure,” says I.
“If spending’s all you want of a treasure,” he says, as scornful as if I’d asked him to come and steal apples from a blind peddler, “why you can have it.”
“Well, why else do you want a treasure?” says I.
“To get it,” says he. “Just to show myself it can be done. Spending isn’t much fun.”