"I haven't got much money about me now," said Jones, with a shrug and a smile.
"You would have done better not to have left my employment, Jones," said the merchant. "You wanted higher pay, I believe, and as I wouldn't give it, you decided that you could better yourself at the mines."
"That is about so, sir."
"Well, and what luck did you have?"
"Good luck at first, sir. I made a thousand dollars at the mines in a few months."
"Indeed!" said Orton, in surprise.
"I came with it to San Francisco, and gambled it away in one night. Then I was on my beam-ends, as the sailors say."
"Did you go back?"
"No. I went to work in the city, and managed to get enough money to buy a steerage passage, and here I am."
"I suppose you have come to ask me to take you back into my employ? That, I take it, is your business with me."