"He is dead; he was lost on the brig Waldo, which went down by those rocks you see off there," replied Leopold, pointing to the reefs.
"Then he is dead!" exclaimed the fop, with a new gleam of hope. "Then he has gone to the happy hunting-ground, where gold isn't a hundred and twenty above par; and he won't have any use for it there, you see. The right thing to do is to divy."
"I think not. If your father had lost twelve hundred dollars in gold on this beach, and went to the happy hunting-ground before he found it, you would not say that the money belonged to me, if I happened to dig it up," added Leopold, earnestly, for he had some hope of convincing the New Yorker of the correctness of the position he had taken, and of inducing him to keep the secret of the hidden treasure until its ownership had been fully investigated.
"That's another sort of a thing, you see," replied Mr. Redmond. "In that case, the money would belong to me, as his nearest heir, and I should have the pleasure of spending the whole amount, thus unexpectedly reclaimed from the sands of the sea, in champagne suppers at Delmonico's up-town house. That would be the fair thing, you see."
"I think so myself; and I purpose to act on precisely the principle you suggest. Mr. Wallbridge, to whom the money belonged, has gone to the happy hunting-ground, where I don't want to trouble him to hunt for this bag of gold. For aught I know, Mr. Wallbridge had had a handsome, refined accomplished son, familiar with the poets, to whom this money now belongs just as much as though he were here to claim it; though I hope, when he gets it, that he will not spend the whole or any part of it in champagne suppers. I see that we are perfectly agreed in this matter, and that you think the way I mention is the right way to do this sort of thing."
Mr. Redmond felt that he had been whipped in the argument; and he was very much dissatisfied with himself for the admission he had made in the supposed case, and very much dissatisfied with Leopold for the advantage he had taken of the admission.
"Who was the feller that buried the money?" he demanded, feeling his way to another argument in favor of a division.
"Mr. Wallbridge."
"Who was he?"
"I don't know."