"Mine either," assented Walter.
The stranger seemed much disappointed, but not yet at the end of his resources. "Well, then," he began again, "you take the bonds, sell them for a fair discount for cash, and use the proceeds towards those provisions?"
"Hadn't you better do that yourself? We're not brokers. We're commission merchants. If you come to us with cash in hand we'll sell you anything money will buy, and no questions asked; but Nicaragua bonds, payable any time and no time, are not in our line." So said Walter.
"Not much," echoed Charley.
"Your line seems to be small potatoes," muttered the stranger testily. Then quickly checking himself, he carelessly asked, "I suppose you'd have no objection to keeping these bonds in your safe for a day or two for me, giving me a receipt for them, or the equivalent? I don't feel half easy about carrying them about with me."
"Why, no," said Charley, looking at Walter, to see how he would take it.
"Yes," objected Walter, "most decidedly."
"'No;' 'yes;' who's boss here, anyhow?" sneered the agent, dismissing his wheedling tone, now that he had played his last card. Even Charley seemed a trifle nettled at being snubbed by Walter in the presence of a stranger. After all, it seemed a trifling favor to ask of them.
"My partner and I can settle that matter between ourselves. Once for all, we don't choose to be mixed up in your filibustering schemes in any way. Your five minutes have grown to three-quarters of an hour already. This is our busy day," he concluded, as a broad hint to the stranger to take leave, and at once.
"Very well," said the unmoved fiscal agent, buttoning up his coat. "But you'll repent, all the same, having thrown away the finest opportunity of making a fortune ever offered——"