“You won’t say anything about what I have told you?”
“Never a word; only, don’t mention it to me again. I would rather be poor all my life than make a living in that dishonest way.”
“Say, Coleman, sit down here a minute. I want to whisper something to you.”
The man was a long time in sitting down. He seemed to think that Smith had some other terms to disclose which would lead him into his scheme, whether he wanted to or not.
“I will give you five thousand dollars,” said Smith, in an earnest undertone. “Just think of that! Here you will be as poor as Job’s turkey, and that amount of money will easily set you on your feet.”
“I don’t care if it’s ten thousand. I won’t do it.”
“Well, Coleman, I was only just fooling you,” said Smith, and in order to give color to his words he leaned back and laughed heartily. “You will do to tie to.”
“Yes?” said Coleman, and he laughed, too, but it was a different sort of laugh. “You have an awful funny way of fooling a fellow, I must say. If you were not in earnest when you sat down here I shall miss my guess.”
Coleman got upon his feet again, and Smith was so angry that he let him go without compelling him to promise over again that he would not tell anybody of the scheme that had been proposed to him. He laid down on his bed and filled his pipe, but he rolled over to see where Smith went.
“That fellow is a-going to get himself in a power of disturbance the first thing he knows,” said he to his wife, as he saw Smith moving down toward Mr. Sprague’s end of the street. “He is fixing himself to get hung.”