style="font-size:15px;"> Walter went home that night thanking his lucky stars that he had come out of a bad scrape so easily. He was thinking over the matter, when Charley burst into the room. "I say, Walt, old fel, don't you want to buy a piece of me?" he blurted out, tossing his cap on the table, and falling into a chair quite out of breath.
Walter simply stared, and for a minute the two friends stared at each other without speaking. Walter at length demanded: "Are you crazy, Charles Wormwood? What in the name of common sense do you mean?"
"Oh, I'm not fooling. You needn't be scared. Haven't you ever heard of folks buying pieces of ships? Say?"
"S'pose I have; what's that got to do with men?"
"I'll tell you. Look here. When a feller wants to go to Californy awful bad, like me, and hasn't got the chink, like me, he gets some other fellers who can't go, like you, to chip in to pay his passage for him."
"Pooh! That's all plain sailing. When he earns the money he pays it back," Walter rejoined.
"No, you're all out. Just you hold your hosses. It's like this. The chap who gets the send-off binds himself, good and strong, mind you, to divide what he makes out there among his owners, 'cordin' to what they put into him – same's owning pieces of a ship, ain't it? See? How big a piece'll you take?" finished Charley, cracking his knuckles in his impatience.
Walter leaned back in his chair, and burst out in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Charley grew red in the face. "Look here, Walt, you needn't have any if you don't want it." He took up his cap to go. Walter stopped him.
"There, you needn't get your back up, old chap. It's the funniest thing I ever heard of. Why, it beats all!"
"It's done every day," Charley broke in. "You won't lose anything by me, Walt," he added, anxiously scanning Walter's face. "See if you do."
Walter had saved a little money. He therefore agreed to become a shareholder in Charles Wormwood, Esquire, to the tune of fifty dollars, said Wormwood duly agreeing and covenanting, on his part, to pay over dividends as fast as earned. So the ingenious Charley sailed with as good a kit as could be picked up in Boston, not omitting a beautiful Colt's revolver (Walter's gift), on which was engraved, "Use me; don't abuse me." Charles was to work his passage out in the new clipper, which arrangement would land him in San Francisco with his capital unimpaired. "God bless you, Charley, my boy," stammered Walter, as the two friends wrung each other's hands. He could not have spoken another word without breaking down, which would have been positive degradation in a boy's eyes.
"I'll make your fortune, see if I don't," was Charley's cheerful farewell. "On the square I will," he brokenly added.
The house of Bright, Wantage & Company had a confidential clerk for whom Walter felt a secret antipathy from the first day they met. We cannot explain these things; we only know that they exist. It may be a senseless prejudice; no matter, we cannot help it. This clerk's name was Ramon Ingersoll. His manner toward his fellow clerks was so top-lofty and so condescending that one and all thoroughly disliked him. Some slight claim Ramon was supposed to have upon the senior partner, Mr. Bright, kept the junior clerks somewhat in awe of him. But there was always friction in the counting-room when the clerks were left alone together.
The truth is that Ramon's father had at one time acted as agent for the house at Matanzas, in Cuba. When he died, leaving nothing but debts and this one orphan child, for he had buried his wife some years before, Mr. Bright had taken the little Ramon home, sent him to school, paid all his expenses out of his own pocket and finally given him a place of trust in his counting-house. In a word, this orphaned, penniless boy owed everything to his benefactor.
As has been already mentioned, without being able to give a reason for his belief, Walter had an instinctive feeling that Ramon would some day get him into trouble. Fortunately Walter's duties kept him mostly outside the warehouse, so that the two seldom met.
One day Ramon, with more than ordinary cordiality, asked Walter to visit him at his room that same evening In order to meet, as he said, one or two particular friends of his. At the appointed time Walter went, without mistrust, to Ingersoll's lodgings. Upon entering the room he found there two very flashy-looking men, one of whom was short, fat, and smooth-shaven, with an oily good-natured leer lurking about the corners of his mouth; the other dark-browed, bearded, and scowling, with, as Walter thought, as desperately villainous a face as he had ever looked upon.
"Ah, here you are, at last!" cried Ramon, as he let Walter in. "This is Mr. Goodman," here the fat man bowed, and smiled blandly; "and this, Mr. Lambkin." The dark man looked up, scowled, and nodded. "And now," Ramon went on, "as we have been waiting for you, what say you to a little game of whist, or high-low-jack, or euchre, just to pass away the time?"
"I'm agreeable," said Mr. Goodman, "though, upon my word and honor, I hardly know one card from another. However, just to make up your party, I will take a hand."
The knight of the gloomy brow silently drew his chair up to the table, which was, at least, significant of his intentions.
Walter had no scruples about playing an innocent game of whist. So he sat down with the others.
The game went on rather languidly until, all at once, the fat man broke out, without taking his eyes off his cards, "Bless me! – why, the strangest thing! – if I were a betting man, I declare I wouldn't mind risking a trifle on this hand."
Ramon laughed good-naturedly, as he replied in an offhand sort of way: "Oh, we're all friends here. There's no objection to a little social game, I suppose, among friends." Here he stole an inquiring look at Walter. "Besides," he continued, while carelessly glancing at his own hand, "I've a good mind to bet a trifle myself."
Though still quite unsuspicious, Walter looked upon this interruption of the harmless game with misgiving.
"All right," Goodman resumed, "here goes a dollar, just for the fun of the thing."
The taciturn Lambkin said not a word, but taking out a well-stuffed wallet, quietly laid down two dollars on the one that Goodman had just put up.
"I know I can beat them," Ramon whispered in Walter's ear. "By Jove, I'll risk it just this once!"
"No, don't," Walter whispered back, pleadingly, "it's gambling."
"Pshaw, man, it's only for sport," Ramon impatiently rejoined, immediately adding five dollars of his own money to the three before him.
Walter laid down his cards, leaned back in his chair, and folded his arms resolutely across his chest. "And the fat man said he hardly knew one card from another. How quick some folks do learn," he said to himself.
"Isn't our young friend going to try his luck?" smiled, rather than asked, the unctuous Goodman.
"No; I never play for money," was the quiet response.
Once the ice was broken the game went on for higher, and still higher, stakes, until Walter, getting actually frightened at the recklessness with which Ramon played and lost, rose to go.
After vainly urging him to remain, annoyed at his failure to make Walter play, enraged by his own losses, Ramon followed Walter outside the door, shut it behind them, and said in a menacing sort of way, "Not a word of this at the store."
"Promise you won't play any more."
"I won't do no such thing. Who set you up for my guardian? If you're mean enough to play the sneak, tell if you dare!"
Walter felt his anger rising,
