"Just one moment, friends," said Mr. Snider, "just one moment."
They got a stool from the "May Queen," and a little table. Mr. Snider sat down at the table, with Mr. Bowditch and Deacon Chick hovering near. They produced a bundle of certificates, all printed in bright purple ink, with a picture of Washington, and a big eagle, and a flag at the top. At the bottom was a great gold seal, with two red ribbons fluttering from it. Mr. Snider filled in the names with a fountain pen, and the number of shares that each man purchased.
He sat there and simply raked in money. I counted three thousand dollars before I got tired counting. But they got more than that, for the black-eyed man—the man who groaned during the speech- making—told me that old Melvin Eaton, who had tested the gold, walked away for a while and thought it over, and then came back and bought four hundred more shares, giving Mr. Snider five hundred dollars in cash and a check for fifteen hundred. This had such an effect on the others—for Melvin had a reputation for being "closer'n the bark of a tree"—that several of them doubled their previous purchases. One man had already bought a hundred shares, and now he counted ten more fifty dollar bills into Mr. Snider's hand. The money went into a black bag, and Mr. Snider raised the number of shares on his certificate to two hundred.
"No need to waste another certificate," said he.
The black-eyed man pulled me by the sleeve, and led me up the wharf, away from the crowd.
"You didn't come on the boat with us," he said, "perhaps you're part of the Company?"
"I am not!" I said, "I came here last night to look for a boat I had been cruising in. They made me stay here over night,—Mr. Snider and the Professor did, but I'm going back on the steamer with you."
"How do they work this fake anyhow?"
I stared at him.
"Oh, come! You know it's a fake as well as I do. I knew it was one before I came,—anything that Bowditch is in is always a fake. I'm sort of sorry, you know, to see these old roosters getting skinned so badly. It'll do some of them good, for believing in Bowditch,—he never had to do with anything straight yet."