“It would have blown the pistol to atoms!” exclaimed Mr. Master.
“It would so have done,” said Mr. Gubb, “except for the time I loaded it being the first beginning time I ever loaded a pistol. In loading a Briggs & Bolton, I have since subsequently learned, the powder ought to go into it first, and the bullet second. I put the bullet in first.”
“Well, bless my stars!” exclaimed Mr. Master. “Bless my stars! If that is the case—if that is the case, I’m going to bed again. I have to get up before daylight to take a bath.”
WAFFLES AND MUSTARD
It would not be true to say that Mr. Gubb had become suspicious of Mr. Medderbrook’s honesty. The fact that the cashier of the Riverbank National Bank told him the Utterly Hopeless Gold-Mine stock was not worth the paper it was printed on did pain him, however.
It pained Mr. Gubb to think his father-in-law-to-be might be guilty of even unconscious duplicity, and when Mr. Master paid him the six thousand and seventy-five dollars Mr. Gubb decided that only three thousand dollars of it should pass immediately into Mr. Medderbrook’s hands. Mr. Gubb put two thousand dollars in the bank and invested the balance in furniture for his office and in articles and instruments that were needed for his detective career. The three thousand dollars he took to Mr. Medderbrook and paid it to him, leaving only eight thousand nine hundred dollars unpaid.
Mr. Medderbrook was greatly pleased with this and told Mr. Gubb so.
“This is a bully payment on account,” he said, “and if you keep on this way you’ll soon be all paid up, but you don’t want to let that worry you, for I’m having a brand-new lot of stock in a brand-new mine printed, and I’ll sell you a whole lot of it as soon as we are square. I’m going to call it the Little Syrilla Gold-Mine—”