“See here, Walt,”—David stood up and straightened his shoulders. “I’ll take that from you, but you’d better retract about the dog. And that reminds me, now you’re stripped for action, how much did you give Harrigan for his find—the asbestos?”
“That, Mr. Claymore-and-Kilts, is none of your damned business.”
“Good!” exclaimed David. “Now, you’re more like your real self than I’ve seen you yet. The Saturn is a hospitable club. I think I’ll put up my name some day.”
“Speaking of sarcasm,” began Bascomb, but the expression of David’s face checked him. “My God, Davy, you don’t realize what it means to tell a chap what I’ve told you and get turned down as—”
“I think I do, Walt,” interrupted David. “I’m not going to insult either of us by saying I’m sorry, but if you want to come into this thing—help me organize a company independent of the N. M. & Q., you understand, I have a few friends who are willing to go in with me, and I’d like to make you one of them.”
Bascomb’s astonishment held him speechless for a moment.
“But my father!” he exclaimed.
“That’s for you to decide.”
“Hang it, you old pirate, I’d like to at that if I can get the governor to see it. I’ll put it up to him to-night. But, Great Scott, man, it’s charity!”
“Not a bit of it. It may look that way to you, but I came here with the intention of making some such proposition. Don’t you see it will mean less work for me in the end? The Northern Improvement money is as good as any. I’ll take over your father’s stock till he gets on his feet, or you can take it, and we’ll cover any deficits with my money, and no one will be the wiser. The asbestos will be a paying thing in a year or two. In the mean time we’ll manage to get along.”