"Bill be hanged!" he broke in. "I don't care a continental about the bill. I invested fifteen hundred dollars of my own money in that road-house, and you let that fakir get away with the whole of it. You're a nice partner!"
I was surprised now, and a good deal cut up and hurt. 'Twas an understandin' between us—not a written one, but an understandin' just the same—that neither should go into any outside deal without tellin' the other. We'd agreed to that after the row concernin' Taylor and the "Palace Parlors." So I was surprised and hurt and mad. But I held in well as I could.
"That's enough of that, Jim Henry!" says I. "I'll talk about that later. Now I'll tell you the rest of the yarn I started with. After that critter who called himself Frank, but whose name, it seemed, was Francis, had galloped away with the stewardess woman, there was consider'ble excitement around that dinin'-room, now I tell you. However, Johnson and Washburn and me managed to get together in the private office and I told 'em all about how we come to be there, and about our gettin' their dinner, and all the rest of it. They seemed to think 'twas funny, laughed liked a pair of loons, but I was a long ways from laughin'.
"'Well, well, well!' says Johnson, when I'd finished, 'that's the best joke I've heard in a month of Sundays. You sartinly have your own ways of doin' business down here, Cap'n Snow. But the dinner was a good one and I'll pay you for it now. How much?'
"'Well,' says I, 'I suppose I ought to get what I can for our crowd to leave with their wives and relations afore we're carted to jail. Course the meal we got for you wa'n't what you expected and I can't charge that Frank thief's price for it; but I've got to charge somethin'. If you think a dollar a head wouldn't be too much, I—'
"'A dollar!' says both of 'em. 'A dollar!'
"'Do you mean that's all you'll charge?' says Johnson. 'A dollar for that dinner! It was the best—'
"'You bet it was!' says Washburn.
"'Look here!' goes on Johnson. 'I was to pay Frank, or whatever his real name is, two-fifty a plate. Yours was wuth three of any meal I ever got here, but, if you will be satisfied with the contract price I made with him, I'll give you a check now. And, Cap'n Snow, let me give you a piece of advice. Now you've got this hotel, keep it; keep it and run it. If you can furnish dinners like this one every day in the week durin' the summer and fall you'll have customers enough. Why, I'll engage twenty-five plates for next Sunday, myself. I've got another week-end party, haven't I, Wash?'
"'If you haven't I can get one for you,' says Washburn. 'Johnson's advice is good, Cap'n. Keep this place and run it yourself. Don't be afraid of Francis. Confound him! I ought to have him jailed. The Club would pitch me out if they knew I had the chance and didn't take it. But I won't, for your sake. So long as he doesn't trouble you I'll keep quiet. But if he does trouble you, if he ever comes back, just send for me. However, you won't have to send; he'll never come back.'