"I haven't time now."
"Very well. Planters' Hotel—bar-room—seven o'clock. I'll be there if they don't turn me out before that time. If they do, you will find me in the street."
Although I was not very confident he would keep his appointment, it was the best I could do. If he failed to be there, he was evidently a character so noted, that I could easily find him. I hastened to my dinner, and reached Mrs. Greenough's rather late. I explained the reason of my tardiness, which was quite satisfactory. My landlady hoped that I should recover my money, and I hoped so too—a degree of unanimity which does not always exist between landlady and boarder.
I was on the work as the clock struck one, but I had to do some running that noon, in order to protect my reputation. Conant did not drive business in the afternoon as he had in the forenoon, when I think he intended to wear me out. We worked steadily, and I kept my end of the board up. I was not sorry to hear the clock strike six, for I was tired, though perhaps not more so than Conant himself. I went home, ate my supper, did my chores in the house, and at seven o'clock I was in the bar-room of the Planters' Hotel. It was no place for a boy, or a man either, for that matter. No one was what could be called, in good society, disreputably drunk, unless it was the seedy gentleman whom I met by appointment; and even he was able to handle himself tolerably well. No doubt he would have been more intoxicated if he had not drank up the dollar he had borrowed; but his wits were not wholly stupefied.
"Well, my lad, you have come, and so have I," said Farringford, when I entered the room. "Both come, and that makes two of us, all told."
"Yes. I wanted to see you about—"
"Stop a minute, my lad," interposed he, putting his trembling hand upon my shoulder. "Let us go to work right. When I used to run steamboats, we had to put in wood and water before we could get up steam."
"When did you run steamboats?" I asked.
"Ten or fifteen years ago. I was a rich man then; but now I'm as poor as a church mouse with his hair all singed off. I am; but I'm jolly; yes, I am jolly. Let's proceed to business."
"Did you own a steamboat—"