“I never desert a friend,” said Sam, loftily. He should have added, “while that friend has money.”
At twelve o’clock Sam left the store, ostensibly to get lunch, but really to sell the bond. He went downtown, and had no difficulty in disposing of the bond for five hundred and sixty dollars, the market price.
“How much of this can I venture to take?” he said to himself.
After a little consideration, he divided the sum into two parts. Four hundred dollars he set apart for Joshua. The balance--a hundred and sixty dollars--he decided to retain as his commission. He relied upon Joshua’s verdancy to help him in this barefaced swindle, and had his story all ready for his credulous mind.
He was half an hour late at the store, but received the sharp reprimand of his employer with equanimity, consoling himself with the hundred and sixty dollars he had hidden in his pocket.
It was not until the six o’clock dinner that he met Joshua.
“Well,” said the latter, eagerly, “did you sell the bond?”
“Yes.”
“How much did you get?”
“I hope you won’t be disappointed, Joshua, but I had to submit to be cheated. The old fellow felt sure it was stolen, when I refused to refer him to anybody in proof of my right to sell the bond. He wanted to get it for seventy-five cents on the dollar, but I got him up to eighty.”