The Voyage of the Hoppergrass Part 24

Everybody was interested, brightened up, happy and good-natured.

They smiled and joked over the gold. Only one man seemed at all troubled in his mind.

"There's jus' one thing," I heard him say to two other men, "there's jus' one thing that kinder worries me. If we go ahead and perdoose gold at this rate, we're goin' to flood the market!

Yessir! Gold will get so common that the price of everything will go sky-high, an' that'll raise old Ned!"

The other two looked pretty serious at this, and they started to discuss it. One of them thought they had better hold back most of the gold, "and only spring it on people a little at a tune."

Suddenly Mr. Snider shouted: "Now, friends, if you please, we will go down to the wharf for the demonstration!"

CHAPTER X

MR. SNIDER

It was hard to get them started--they were cl.u.s.tered so thick around the Deacon and his little box, all talking and laughing and discussing. Everyone was awake now, and animated,--if those six little yellow lumps of gold had appeared sooner, even the Hon. J.

Harvey Bowditch couldn't have put the people to sleep.

By sending the Deacon and the gold nuggets ahead, the procession was formed again for the wharf. The band stayed in the yard, playing tune after tune, and enjoying themselves immensely.

The "May Queen" was lying at one side of the wharf, so Mr. Snider, the Deacon, and Mr. Bowditch went to the end, while the people gathered around them in a semi-circle. Mr. Snider had a small tin box, which might once have held a pound of crackers. It was punched full of tiny holes. Two wires were soldered on one side of the box, and he connected these by long coils of fine wire with the jars of an electric battery. A little tin tube had been fastened to the bottom of the box so that it stood upright. Into this Mr. Snider poured some powder which he took from two little vials,--first he put in some white powder, and then some of a dark blue color. He sealed up the top of the tube with beeswax and then let everyone look into the box and see that, except for the little sealed tube, it was absolutely empty.

Then he put on the cover, wound a cord completely around it, got the wires clear, and with the greatest care lowered the box over the end of the wharf. He kept on lowering until the box must have been eight or nine feet below the surface. Then he stood waiting, with the most solemn expression upon his face. Mr. Bowditch stood beside him, holding a watch, and counting the minutes. Every now and then he would say, like the tolling of a great bell: "One minute gone! ... Two minutes gone! ... Three minutes gone! ..."

The people had watched the preparations with the utmost attention.

Not a movement made by Mr. Snider escaped them. Now they all stood in profound silence. Some of the men had taken out their watches and were keeping count of the time. After "Eight minutes gone!"

had tolled forth from the big man, he began counting the seconds: "And ten seconds! ... Fifteen! Twenty! ... Thirty! ... Thirty- five! ... Six! Seven! Eight!"

At eight minutes and thirty-eight seconds Mr. Snider began to pull up the box. The excitement was intense. Men from the "May Queen"

had joined the group,--everyone was leaning forward to watch, with faces set and eager. You could hear the people breathe,--a sort of miracle was being performed, gold was being made right before their eyes!

The box came to the top and Mr. Snider had it at last in his hands. He disconnected the wires of the battery, unwound the cord which tied the box, and lifted the cover. One woman drew in her breath so quickly that she almost sobbed, and then choked, and had to be slapped on the back. Everybody crowded around, even closer than before, as Mr. Snider exhibited the box. There was a little mud and gravel inside and this they rinsed away very carefully with a cup and basin of water. Sticking to the tin tube were two or three dozen glittering golden grains! The box was pa.s.sed about, and everyone looked at the gold in silence.

"Well, I snum! Yer've done it! I didn't believe yer could, but yer've done it!"

This remark, from a man in front, made most of the people laugh.

One very serious old man kept the box in his hands. He had neither laughed nor smiled when the man in front spoke, but he looked earnestly at Mr. Snider.

"Just let me test them little bits of dust, will yer, Mister?"

"Test them? Oh, yes,--certainly, certainly. By all means."

"That's right," said two or three, "let Melvin test 'em."

After giving the box to someone else to hold, Melvin fished out of his pocket a little china dish and a bottle of some liquid. They sc.r.a.ped off some of the gilt particles with a pocket knife, and put them in the dish. Melvin had his bottle poised above them.

"If it aint genyewine," said he, solemnly, "it'll fizzle when I pour this acid onto it, but if it is genyewine, it won't fizzle."

Then he poured the acid into the dish. There was a pause.

"It don't fizzle," said he.

"Three cheers for Brother Snider!" bellowed the Hon. J. Harvey Bowditch.

The old man who had made the test advanced toward Mr. Snider. He had a roll of money in his hand, and I saw a hundred dollar bill on top.

"I'll take a hundred of them shares, Mister," said he.

"I come first here," said another man, "I've had this fixed up with Harvey Bowditch ever since we come. Gimme fifty shares."

"I'll take fifty of 'em," said another man.

"Here's twenty-five dollars," said another, "that's good for five shares, aint it?"

"Just one moment, friends," said Mr. Snider, "just one moment."

They got a stool from the "May Queen," and a little table. Mr.

Snider sat down at the table, with Mr. Bowditch and Deacon Chick hovering near. They produced a bundle of certificates, all printed in bright purple ink, with a picture of Was.h.i.+ngton, and a big eagle, and a flag at the top. At the bottom was a great gold seal, with two red ribbons fluttering from it. Mr. Snider filled in the names with a fountain pen, and the number of shares that each man purchased.

He sat there and simply raked in money. I counted three thousand dollars before I got tired counting. But they got more than that, for the black-eyed man--the man who groaned during the speech- making--told me that old Melvin Eaton, who had tested the gold, walked away for a while and thought it over, and then came back and bought four hundred more shares, giving Mr. Snider five hundred dollars in cash and a check for fifteen hundred. This had such an effect on the others--for Melvin had a reputation for being "closer'n the bark of a tree"--that several of them doubled their previous purchases. One man had already bought a hundred shares, and now he counted ten more fifty dollar bills into Mr.

Snider's hand. The money went into a black bag, and Mr. Snider raised the number of shares on his certificate to two hundred.

"No need to waste another certificate," said he.

The black-eyed man pulled me by the sleeve, and led me up the wharf, away from the crowd.

"You didn't come on the boat with us," he said, "perhaps you're part of the Company?"

"I am not!" I said, "I came here last night to look for a boat I had been cruising in. They made me stay here over night,--Mr.

Snider and the Professor did, but I'm going back on the steamer with you."

"How do they work this fake anyhow?"

I stared at him.

"Oh, come! You know it's a fake as well as I do. I knew it was one before I came,--anything that Bowditch is in is always a fake.

I'm sort of sorry, you know, to see these old roosters getting skinned so badly. It'll do some of them good, for believing in Bowditch,--he never had to do with anything straight yet."

"Why do they believe in him now?"

"Oh, it's Chick. Chick is an innocent old Betty, he's as much fooled as the others. He told me that he had put a thousand into this a week ago, and I don't doubt he has. Bowditch would have got a few of them,--there are always some who believe in a wind-bag, no matter how many bunco games he has been in, but Chick got most of them. Who knows anything about Snider? Now I've seen him, I wouldn't let him hold my coat while I ran across the street and back,--not if there was two cents in the coat that I ever wanted to see again. But they swallow him because Chick does, I guess.

And Chick does because Bowditch does. And there you are... Where's this Professor? Everything Chick and Bowditch told us while they were rounding us up for this trip was about the Professor. It was Professor this and Professor that,--and now we get here, and he isn't to be seen. What's happened to him?"

"He went to Lanesport just before the steamer came."