The Wood Fire in No. 3

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

"I'll give it to you exactly as Collins gave it to me; and, Boggs, you will please keep still until I get through. Wharton, change your seat so you can clap your hand over Boggs's mouth when he breaks out. Thanks.

"About two years ago Sam Collins came back to New York, first time in nearly twenty years. He had been up in Peru living in the clouds, digging for copper and not finding any, he told me; then he kept on to Ceylon, wandered around there for a while, and finally landed at Vera Cruz and went up into Mexico, until he struck the town of Queretaro. You've been there, Wharton; I remember your sketch of the old Cathedral."

Wharton nodded, and settled himself deeper in his chair.

"Shot Maximilian there," whispered Boggs under his breath.

Mac glanced savagely at Boggs, but continued:

"On taking in the town Collins found that everybody, from the beggars in the Plaza to the bankers in the palaces, had their pockets full of opals, wads and wads of them, some big as duck-shot, some big as birds' eggs. Collins is an expert on anything that comes out of the ground, and the next morning he was astride of a burro and off to the mines, noting how the minerals lay and the dip of the land, and the next week he was away prospecting, and before the month was out he had bought a hill that was as bare as your hand of everything but bunch grass and sand fleas, and had ten half-breeds at work, and by the end of the year he had struck hard-pan, with enough opals lying around loose to make him rich. This was two years ago, remember. Pretty soon Sam discovered that he needed more money to develop his mine, and he started for New York to look up his old friends to help him raise it.

"When Collins arrived he found that a lot of things could happen in twenty years: half of his friends were dead; some were scattered over the world, wandering as he had been; and out of fifty or more old chums who had known him at college only a dozen or more were left. Tim Peaslee was one of them.

"Sam loved Tim; he always had. For years they had kept up their letters; then Tim lost track of Collins, and communication ceased. All the way to New York Collins was thinking of Tim. If he was rich, they'd go in together on the mine; and if he was poor, he'd share what he had with him. The Tim he loved was not the kind of man to shake hands with. His Tim was the sort of a fellow to hug and keep your hand on his knee while you talked to him.

"Sam found him in an old house in Bond Street—one of those high-stooped, passed-by wrecks that are being turned into Italian tenements, with wood and coal shops in the basement and sign painters in the garret. He was living with his old sister, Miss Peaslee—older than Tim. The two had a life interest in the property, and none of the heirs could take possession until these two were buried.

"It was dark when he reached Tim's and mounted the steps; too dark for him to notice the queer iron railings and newel posts red with rust, and the front door that hadn't had a coat of paint on it for years, nor the knob and knocker that were black with the weather. At his first ring no one answered; at the third, a woman with a basket opened the door. She was on her way out—that's why she opened it.