CHAPTER XX.
WHO WROTE THE CODICIL?
"By the great horn-spoon!" It was Mr. Vollar's clerk who uttered the above ejaculation. The time was when Bob Nellis brought the valuable pearl there for his employer to pass judgment upon. If we were to say that the man was astonished we should but hardly express his feelings. He was in the back part of the store, making out some accounts against his customers, and of course he heard all that passed between Mr. Vollar and the boy who had come there to see him. When Bob was offered two hundred dollars for his pearl and the jeweller opened the safe to take out the money, he laid his pen upon his desk and settled back in his chair in speechless amazement. He could not see what passed between them, for he was at work behind a board partition; but his ears told him just what happened at the counter. He knew when Bob received the money, heard him say that Hank Lufkin would be almost overcome, and then go out.
"By the great horn-spoon!" said the clerk. "If that worthless little jackanapes hasn't struck it at last, I'm a Dutchman. Who would have thought that he could have found a pearl worth two hundred dollars! I declare, it beats me."
Sam Houston, for that was the clerk's name, had a great desire to be rich. He was getting only a dollar a day for his services in the store, and that much money did not go very far toward relieving his actual necessities, to say nothing of his getting a horse and buggy of Mr. Jones every Sunday afternoon for the purpose of taking an airing in the country. He had held that position for almost two years and he saw little chance of promotion. It was the same thing over and over every day, and although he kept a bright lookout for other chances outside of the store, nothing seemed to present itself. He remembered how he used to envy Bob Nellis, with his rich father, but when the report got around town that Bob had been cast off, and that his cousin had taken his place, then he used to cast envious eyes upon Gus Layton.
"That's always the way it is with everybody," said he; and one would think that he had been cheated out of the money instead of Bob Nellis. "All the fellows in the world can get rich instead of me. Don't I wish I had some rich uncle to die and leave me a pocketful of rocks? But then I wouldn't stay here, I bet you. I would go to New York, where I could put on style."
To make matters worse, Sam Houston had got in the way of going in debt. Mr. Jones had hinted rather pointedly that he would be glad to have that seven dollars and a half that he owed him the next time he came around after a horse, and there were half a dozen other creditors who were getting alarmed for their money; and by counting it all up on his fingers Sam made it out that he owed fifty dollars there in Clifton, and he did not know where in the world it was to come from. And here this ragamuffin, this son of a man who was too lazy to go into the hay-field on account of wounds which he must have forgotten long ago, was getting rich in spite of him.
"Now, I say that that way of doing things isn't right," said the clerk, with a good deal of petulance in his tones. "What I owe is a mere pittance to what this boy is going to get for picking up a stone that came in his way, and he will be so lordly that he won't look at anybody else; and here I am—"
He picked up his pen again and went to work at the accounts with alacrity. He heard Mr. Vollar's step, and that proved that he was coming back to see how he got on with them.
"I guess I shall have to get some more money to carry on my business," said he with a smile.
"I should say you had," replied Sam.