“Well, why not?”
“But, don’t you see, it will be thirds instead of halves, and he’ll want to bring some one else in, and it ’ll make it fourths.”
“Well, and if he did? Sometimes a fourth is better than a half. I mean with the help of a clever man we should get more for our fourth than we should if we had half apiece.”
“Oh, all right. I s’pose you know,” he cried; “but I wouldn’t tell any one else.”
“Of course I’m right,” I said, sharply.
“And we couldn’t go on getting the gold here without his knowing it. So you’d better tell him.”
“That’s a nice selfish way of looking at it, Master Esau,” I said.
“Dessay it is,” he replied; “but gold makes you feel selfish. I dunno that I feel so glad now that we’ve found it.”
And I don’t think I felt quite so excited and pleased as I had a short time before.
“It ain’t my fault,” said Dean; “it’s your thinking I didn’t want to play fair.”