The Wood Fire in No. 3

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

"'It's only Sam; he's got a heart as big as an ox, and will understand. Won't you, Sam?'

"Next day Collins started in to raise the money for his mining. Tim introduced him to the cashier and the president of the Exeter, and they both looked Sam over and took in his wide sombrero and queer clothes, and examined his samples—one was a beauty, which Tiffany offered him a big sum for—and then they wrote him a letter—that is, the president did—on the bank's paper, saying that they appreciated greatly the opportunity, etc., but the charter of the bank prevented, etc., and they had no money of their own, etc.—same old kind of a lying letter these men write when they can't get one hundred per cent. on an investment.

"Tim nearly fell off his stool with disappointment when Sam read him the letter, but Sam never turned a hair. If the old fossils in the Exeter didn't have the money, somebody else would; and, sure enough, a dry-goods man and a retired physician turned up, and the two roped in a young millionnaire, a fellow by the name of Moulton, who thought he knew it all, and did. The money was raised, and Sam got ready to go back to Mexico and start the mine on an enlarged scale. All this time he had been looking up his old school-friends, and the night before he started he got them all together, including the new subscribers, the young millionnaire among them, and Sam, at the millionnaire's suggestion, called on old Solari, down in University Place, and arranged for a farewell dinner. Tim was to sit on his right hand and the retired physician on his left, and Sam was to make a proposition to his guests, half of whom were directors in the new company, the nature of which he kept secret even from Tim.

"The old book-keeper begged off, and vowed he couldn't go—hadn't been to a dinner for years; Sister Ann wasn't well, and needed him; and, besides, on that very night he would be up late at his home making up the month's returns—all the excuses a man hunts up when he is hiding the real reason that keeps him away. But Sam understood Tim by this time.

"'I forgot to tell you, Tim,' he came back to say, 'that you mustn't put on your black evening clothes.' (Tim hadn't any, as Sam knew.) 'I'm going in my rough togs, so as to let everybody see me as I am every day, and the others will dress the same, and I want you to oblige me by not wearing yours. It will help me in my deal.'

"So Tim went, the only addition to his toilet being a new black tie which Miss Ann had made for him.

"The dinner was upstairs on the third floor, in Solari's back room—you all know it—same room Lonnegan had last year for that supper he gave us. Sam had told Solari to spare no expense, and to keep setting things up as long as anybody wanted them; and Solari carried out Collins's orders to the last bottle—way down to Chartreuse and Reina Victorias. There were oysters on the half-shell, and crab soup and an entrée of mushrooms, and a filêt with trimmings, and plump little quail on dry toast, salads, desserts, and so on.

"Tim, to the delight of everybody, and especially Sam, thawed out under the influence of the first bottle, and sang a comic song he had not sung since he and Sam had parted, and took every dish in its turn—he was twice helped to quail—and was so happy that Sam could hardly wait for the time to come when the secret he had up his sleeve was to be slipped out and exploded.

"When the coffee was served Sam got up on his feet, and in welcoming his guests took out the opal that Tiffany wanted to buy, and saying how confident he was that before the year was out he would be able to ship to them many more of even greater value and brilliancy, passed it to Tim to hand around the table, some of his old friends never having seen it.

"Tim passed it across the young millionnaire to a man next him, and after everybody had said how beautiful it was, and how they each wanted one just like it, it was handed back to Tim, who laid it on the table beside his plate. There was no mistake about this part of the story, for the millionnaire called the retired physician's attention to it, remarking that as it lay on the white cloth by Tim's hand it looked like a drop of frozen absinthe—which wasn't bad for a millionnaire.