“I don’t care about that,” said Tim, “at least not exactly. I—I——” he hesitated for a moment and then blurted out, “I don’t particularly want to be rich.”
“That,” I said, “is precisely how you ought to feel at your age, but when you get to be forty—I’m forty, so I know—you’ll probably be glad enough to have some money.”
“I want some money now,” said Tim. “Do you think I could get——? How much do you think I’ll get out of my cash register?”
“Well,” I said, “it’s hard to name an exact figure, but it will be something pretty substantial.”
“One thousand dollars?” said Tim anxiously.
“A great deal more than that. If Mr. Ascher makes the arrangements he contemplates you’ll get a great deal more.”
I had only the vaguest idea what Ascher meant to do, and could make no kind of guess at how much Tim would ultimately get, but I felt pretty safe in promising two hundred pounds.
“Do you think I could get it at once?” said Tim. “Or even five hundred dollars? I think I could manage with five hundred dollars. The fact is——”
“You want to get out of that circus,” I said. “I don’t wonder. It must be a very tiresome job.”
“Oh, no. I don’t mind the circus. It’s rather a nuisance of course moving about, and we always are moving. But I have plenty of time to myself. It isn’t to get away from the circus that I want the money. The fact is that I’m making some experiments.”