“I don’t know.” And then it occurred to Benton that perhaps Tom Cooper and Grant might be induced to advance that sum of money.
“Well, perhaps so,” he resumed, after a pause.
“Find out, and then come and talk to me.”
“Won’t four hundred dollars do?”
“No. I shall need to take five hundred dollars with me to San Francisco.”
“Is this the best you can do?”
“Yes.”
“I will think of it, and let you know.”
Albert Benton walked thoughtfully out of the restaurant. He had tried gold-digging, and didn’t like it. His old business seemed to him more reliable, and this seemed a good opportunity to go back into it.
“Hardy hasn’t much enterprise,” he soliloquized. “If he can clear forty dollars a week, I shouldn’t be surprised if I could carry it up to sixty. I have never had a chance to show what I could do, always having had some one over me. I should just like to try it once.”