“Most of my friends are as poor as myself,” said Paul. “Still, I think I shall be able to raise the money. Only wait for me two days.”
“Yes, Paul, I'll wait that long. I'd like to sell out to you, if only because you have helped me when I was sick. But for you all that would have been lost time.”
“Where there's a will there's a way, George,” said Paul. “I'm bound to buy your stand and I will raise the money somehow.”
Paul bought a few papers, for he did not like to lose the afternoon trade, and in an hour had sold them all off, realizing a profit of twenty cents. This made his profits for the day seventy cents.
“That isn't as well as I used to do,” said Paul to himself, “but perhaps I can make something more by and by. I will go now and see what I can get for the ring.”
As he had determined, he proceeded to a pawnbroker's shop which he had often passed. It was on Chatham street, and was kept by an old man, an Englishman by birth, who, though he lived meanly in a room behind his shop, was popularly supposed to have accumulated a considerable fortune.
CHAPTER XV
THE PAWNBROKER'S SHOP
Stuffed behind the counter, and on the shelves of the pawnbroker's shop, were articles in almost endless variety. All was fish that came to his net. He was willing to advance on anything that had a marketable value, and which promised to yield him, I was about to say, a fair profit. But a fair profit was far from satisfying the old man. He demanded an extortionate profit from those whom ill-fortune drove to his door for relief.