"Very likely you would; but how am I to know that?"
"So you don't want to trust me," said Ben, rather disappointed.
"Have you got any money?"
"Yes."
"Very well, you can leave enough with me to secure me against loss, and I will give you the papers."
"How much will that be?"
After a little thought, the dealer answered, "Seventy-five cents." He had some doubt whether Ben had so much; but our hero quickly set his doubts at rest by drawing out his two half-dollars, and demanding a quarter in change.
The sight of this money reassured the dealer. Ben's ragged clothes had led him to doubt his financial soundness; but the discovery that he was a capitalist to the extent of a dollar gave him considerable more respect for him. A dollar may not be a very large sum; I hope that to you, my young reader, it is a very small one, and that you have never been embarrassed for the want of it; but it is enough to lift a ragged street boy from the position of a penniless vagabond to that of a thrifty capitalist. After seeing it, the dealer would almost have felt safe in trusting Ben with the papers without demanding a deposit of their value. Still it was better and safer to require a deposit, and he therefore took the dollar from Ben, returning twenty-five cents in change.
This preliminary matter settled, he made up the parcel of papers.
"There they are," he said. "If you're smart, you can sell 'em all before night."