"What's he traveling with so much money for?"
"I don't know. It is in his coat pocket, and it would have gone overboard if it hadn't been for me."
The ferryman finished his dinner in moody silence. He seemed to be thinking of the subject always uppermost in his mind, his thoughts stimulated, no doubt, by the fact that his expected passenger carried a large sum of money on his person.
"Mr. Randall is in a hurry, father," interposed Lawry, when the ferryman had sat a good half-hour after his son's arrival.
"He must wait till I get ready. He's got money, and I haven't; but I'm just as good as he is. I don't know why I'm poor when so many men are rich. But I'm going to be rich, somehow or other," said he, with more earnestness than he usually exhibited. "I'm too honest for my own good. I'm going to do as other men do; and I shall wake up rich some morning, as they do. Then I sha'n't have to go when folks blow the horn. They'll be willing to wait for me then."
"Don't keep the gentleman waiting, father," added Mrs. Wilford.
"I'm going to be rich, somehow or other," continued the ferryman, still pursuing the exciting line of thought he had before taken up. "I'm going to be rich, by hook or by crook."
"This making haste to get rich ruins men sometimes, husband; and haste makes waste then."
"If I can only get rich, I'll risk being ruined," said John Wilford, as he rose from the table and put on his hat.
He looked more moody and discontented than usual. Instead of hastening to do the work which was waiting for him, he stood before the window, looking out into the garden. Mrs. Wilford told him the gentleman would be impatient, and he finally left the house and walked down to the ferry-boat.