The Three Partners by Bret Harte
page 49 of 222 (22%)
page 49 of 222 (22%)
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and was hesitating over it, he told me YOU were in it too--and that was
enough for me to buy it." "Yes, but we didn't go into it at his figures." "No," said Barker, with an eager smile, "but you SOLD at his figures, for I knew that when I found that YOU, my old partner, was in it; don't you see, I preferred to buy it through your bank, and did at 110. Of course, you wouldn't have sold it at that figure if it wasn't worth it then, and neither I nor you are to blame if it dropped the next week to 60, don't you see?" Stacy's eyes hardened for a moment as he looked keenly into his former partner's bright gray ones, but there was no trace of irony in Barker's. On the contrary, a slight shade of sadness came over them. "No," he said reflectively, "I don't think I've ever been foolish or followed out my OWN ideas, except once, and that was extravagant, I admit. That was my idea of building a kind of refuge, you know, on the site of our old cabin, where poor miners and played-out prospectors waiting for a strike could stay without paying anything. Well, I sunk twenty thousand dollars in that, and might have lost more, only Carter--Kitty's father--persuaded me--he's an awful clever old fellow--into turning it into a kind of branch hotel of Boomville, while using it as a hotel to take poor chaps who couldn't pay, at half prices, or quarter prices, PRIVATELY, don't you see, so as to spare their pride,--awfully pretty, wasn't it?--and make the hotel profit by it." "Well?" said Stacy as Barker paused. "They didn't come," said Barker. |
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