The Accident in the Ring.
Carden had no friends of whom he could ask a loan with any hope of success—in fact, it is doubtful whether he had any friends at all. While in this perplexity he chanced to recall a conversation he had heard some days before in a billiard saloon. It ran thus:
"Yes, Tarbox has more money than any farmer in town. He is mean and close-fisted, and so spends next to nothing. Of course when that is kept up year after year a man can't help getting rich."
"Where does he invest his money—in savings banks?"
"No, he is afraid of them. He is of a suspicious nature, and I shouldn't wonder if he follows the example of an old uncle of his who died twenty years ago."
"How is that?"
"Why, the old man lived in a miserable way in a poor hut, and after he died it was found that he had secreted large sums in various places in and about the hut. I don't know how many thousand dollars."
"Did Nathan Tarbox inherit any of his uncle's money?"