“No right to open it, I s’pose,” said the stranger quickly, as Bar poised the pocketbook in his open hand.
“No,” said Bar. “Private papers, perhaps. No business of ours, you know. All right, you give me your Boston address and I’ll send you your half soon as I get it.”
So saying, Bar slipped the prize into his inside coat-pocket with a movement so nearly instantaneous that there was no chance for any interference, but the stranger’s countenance fell in spite of himself as he stammered:
“Well, no, sir, that won’t do, exactly. I’m going on North from Boston. Tell ye what I’ll do. You give me fifty dollars down. It’s good security for that. You may get five hundred, for all I know. You keep it all and it’ll only cost you fifty. You didn’t find it, you know. It was all my luck.”
“Don’t think I’ve got so much as that about me,” said Bar, with a quick glance up the street.
“Forty, then. Only be quick about it, or I shall lose my train.”
“Haven’t got forty,” drawled Bar.
“Thirty, then, and that’s awful low,” pleaded the stranger, anxiously.
“Thirty dollars is a good deal of money to risk,” considered Bar.
“Twenty-five, then. Say twenty, or give me back the pocketbook.”