"Doctor, we shall be very sorry to part with you, but you have forfeited your right to remain in our camp. You have violated your parole."
"Why, how? What can you mean?" asked the Doctor in bewilderment.
"Why, you agreed to be one of us boys, and to 'share and share alike' with us in work and in everything else. Now, this morning you gave that mountaineer some money out of your own pocket, basely trying to conceal the fact from us. Even yet we don't know the amount of your gift. Now, we have unanimously decided not to submit to any such proceeding."
"But my dear Jack," interrupted the Doctor—
"But my dear Doctor," broke in Jack, "hear me out. What we have decided is to require you to tell us the amount of your benefaction to that man, so that we may owe you our share of it until we go down the mountain in the spring and collect our money. We are sharing and sharing alike in every thing or nothing, so out with it! How much money did you give the man?"
"But Jack, permit me to explain," said the Doctor. "You see, if I gave that fellow any money, it was of my own impulse and without any consultation with you. It was a bit of personal almsgiving in which I have no right to let you share. I did it solely to relieve my own mind, not yours. It wasn't a company transaction at all, and besides I could well afford it inasmuch as by coming up here with you boys and sharing your camp life this winter I have cut off nearly the whole of my personal expenses and am actually saving money."
"Now listen!" said Jack. "We all wanted to give that poor fellow some money with which to feed his wife and little girl 'till blackberries get ripe' next summer, and we should have done so if any of us had had any money. So in relieving your own mind you have relieved ours just as much. We all shared alike in the cost of fitting out this expedition. We have all shared alike in the building of our house and in all the other camp work. We have all shared alike in guard duty, in danger and in everything else, and we're going to do so to the end of the chapter. So we're going to share alike in this gratuity of yours, our shares to be paid to you as soon as we collect our money down below. So you must tell us how much you gave the man, or else our whole partnership and comradeship will be at an end. Come, Doctor, tell us all about it!"
"Well," said the Doctor, "I don't think it fair to let you boys share in what was a purely personal bit of almsgiving, done without any sort of consultation with any of you, but as you insist I will say that I gave the man a twenty dollar bill."
"All right," said Tom. "That gives us a chance to impose upon you. It is three dollars and thirty-three and a third cents apiece for us. We'll never pay that third of a cent, doctor, and so you'll be out a cent and two-thirds besides your own share in the gift. That will help to buy another doll for 'the little gal,' and I suppose you won't mind the expense."
"No," said the Doctor, "but what can be done to relieve these people's wretchedness and lift them up?"