“O, you’ll stay, I’ll bet you on that,” said the landlord, with a laugh and a look that Chase did not like.
“I don’t think you will compel me to stay against my will,” said the boy, rising to his feet. “I have no desire to stop in a house frequented by men who do ‘robbing and stealing.’ I think I can find more agreeable quarters. At any rate, I will look around a little before I decide. I’ll trouble you for my bundle.”
“And I’ll trouble you to sit down,” said the man, pushing him back into his chair. “You needn’t think you’re going to go out on the street to carry tales to the police about my house.”
“I have no intention of doing anything of the kind, for I don’t know anything about your hotel, and I don’t want to,” said Chase, trying hard to keep up a bold front, although his heart sank within him.
The boy had been in the house scarcely ten minutes, and he began to see that he had got himself into trouble by coming there. He was in one of those low sailor boarding-houses of which he had heard and read so much, kept by a man known as a “landshark,” who, while he pretended to make a business of feeding and sheltering seafaring men, gained the principal part of his living by robbing them. Those who came into his house with full pockets, never took a cent out with them. Probably his cupidity had been excited by the mention of the large amount that Chase expected his father to send him immediately upon the receipt of his letter. If he could keep the boy there until the money arrived, Chase would never see a cent of it. He would retain it all himself, and wind up the business by shipping his lodger off on some vessel, pocketing his advance, which would amount to twenty or fifty dollars more, according to the length of the voyage for which he was shipped. Chase had heard much of landsharks from the sailors on board the Petrel, and he understood the situation perfectly, but he was at a loss how to get out of it. It would be folly to irritate the man, so he tried to appease him.
“There’s no use in getting angry over it,” said he. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to hand out your money, and let me take care of it for you,” said the landlord.
“There it is,” said Chase, producing the five-dollar bill.
“This ain’t no account. We use gold in this country. Where’s the rest? Better let me have it all, because I’m responsible, you know.”