“What is the lowest price for passage?”
“A hundred dollars for the steerage.”
When Joe heard this his heart sank within him. It seemed to be the death-blow to his hopes. He had but fifty dollars, or thereabouts, and there was no chance whatever of getting the extra fifty.
“Couldn’t I pay you fifty dollars now and the rest as soon as I can earn it in California?” he pleaded.
“We don’t do business in that way.”
“I’d be sure to pay it, sir, if I lived,” said Joe. “Perhaps you think I am not honest.”
“I don’t know whether you are or not,” said the agent cavalierly. “We never do business in that way.”
Joe left the office not a little disheartened.
“I wish it had been a hundred dollars Aunt Susan left me,” he said to himself.
Joe’s spirits were elastic, however. He remembered that Seth had never given him reason to suppose that the money he had would pay his passage by steamer. He had mentioned working his passage in a sailing-vessel round the Horn. Joe did not like that idea so well, as the voyage would probably last four months, instead of twenty-five days, and so delay his arrival.