CHAPTER III. – MERRIWELL’S GENEROSITY

Mr. Hobson departed, and then Frank rang for a bell boy and sent for Bart and Ephraim. Merry’s two friends came in a short time.

“I have called you up,” said Merry, “to talk over the arrangements for putting ‘For Old Eli’ on the road again without delay. I have decided on that. It will take some little time to manufacture the costly mechanical effect that I propose to introduce into the third act, and we shall have to get some new paper. I believe I can telegraph a description to Chicago so a full stand lithograph from stone can be made that will suit me, and I shall telegraph to-day.”

Hodge stared at Frank as if he thought Merry had lost his senses.

“You always were a practical joker,” he growled; “but don’t you think it’s about time to let up? I don’t see that this is a joking matter. You should have some sympathy for our feelings, if you don’t care for yourself.”

Merry laughed a bit.

“My dear fellow,” he said, “I assure you I was never more serious. I am not joking. I shall telegraph for the paper immediately.”

“Paper like that costs money, and the lithographers will demand a guarantee before they touch the work.”

“And I shall give them a guarantee. I shall instruct them to draw on the First National Bank of Denver, where my money will be deposited.”

“Your money?” gasped Hodge.

“Jeewhillikins!” gurgled Gallup.

Then Frank’s friends looked at each other, the same thought in the minds of both.

Had Merry gone mad? Had his misfortune turned his brain?

“I believe I can have the effect I desire to introduce manufactured for me in Denver,” Frank went on. “I shall brace up that third act with it. I shall make a spectacular climax on the order of the mechanical horse races you see on the stage. I shall have some dummy figures and boats made, so that the boat race may be seen on the river in the distance. I have an idea of a mechanical arrangement to represent the crowd that lines the river and the observation train that carries a load of spectators along the railroad that runs beside the river. I think the swaying crowd can be shown, the moving train, the three boats, Yale, Harvard and Cornell, with their rowers working for life. Harvard shall be a bit in the lead when the boats first appear, but Yale shall press her and take the lead. Then I will have the scene shifted instantly, so that the audience will be looking into the Yale clubhouse. The rear of the house shall open direct upon the river. There shall be great excitement in the clubhouse, which I will have located at the finish of the course. The boats are coming. Outside, along the river, mad crowds are cheering hoarsely, whistles are screeching, Yale students are howling the college cry. Here they come! Now the excitement is intense. Hurrah! Yale has taken the lead! The boats shoot in view at the back of the stage, Yale a length ahead, Harvard next, Cornell almost at her side, and in this form they cross the line, Yale the victor. The star of the piece, myself, who has escaped from his enemies barely in time to enter the boat and help win the race, is brought on by the madly cheering college men, and down comes the curtain on a climax that must set any audience wild.”

Hodge sat down on the bed.

“Frank,” he said, grimly, “you’re going crazy! It would cost a thousand dollars to get up that effect.”

“I don’t care if it costs two thousand dollars, I’ll have it, and I’ll have it in a hurry!” laughed Merriwell. “I am out for business now. I am in the ring to win this time.”

“Yes, you are going crazy!” nodded Hodge. “Where is all the money coming from?”

“I’ve got it!”

Bart went into the air as if he had received an electric shock.

“You – you’ve what?” he yelled.

“Got the money,” asserted Frank.

“Where?” shouted Bart.

“Right here.”

“May I be tickled to death by muskeeters!” gasped Gallup.

“Got two thousand dollars?” said Hodge. “Oh, come off, Merriwell! You are carrying this thing too far now!”

“Just take a look at this piece of paper,” invited Frank, as he passed over the check he had received from Horace Hobson.

Bart took it, he looked at it, he was stricken dumb.

Gallup looked over Bart’s shoulder. His jaw dropped, his eyes bulged from his head, and he could not utter a sound.

“How do you like the looks of it?” smiled Merry.

“What – what is it?” faltered Bart.

“A check. Can’t you see? A check that is good for forty-three thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight dollars.”

“Good for that? Why, it can’t be! Now, is this more of your joking, Merriwell? If it is, I swear I shall feel like having a fight with you right here!”

“It’s no joke, old man. That piece of paper is good – it is good for every dollar. The money is payable to me. I’ve got the dust to put my play out in great style.”

Even then Bart could not believe it. He groped for the bed and sat down, limply, still staring at the check, which he held in his hand.

“What’s this for?” he asked.

“It’s for the Fillmore treasure, which I found in the Utah Desert,” exclaimed Frank. “It was brought to me by the man who came in here a little while ago.”

Then Gallup collapsed.

His knees seemed to buckle beneath him, and he dropped down on the bed.

“Waal, may I be chawed up fer grass by a spavin hoss!” he murmured.

Hodge sat quite still for some seconds.

“Merry,” he said, at last, beginning to tremble all over, “are you sure this is good? Are you sure there is no crooked business behind it?”

“Of course I am,” smiled Frank.

“How can you be?” asked Bart.

“I received it from the very man with whom I did the business in Carson when I made the deposit. In order that there might be no mistake he came on here and delivered it to me personally.”

“I think I’m dyin’!” muttered Ephraim. “I’ve received a shock from which I’ll never rekiver! Forty-three thousan’ dollars! Oh, say, I know there’s a mistake here!”

“Not a bit of a mistake,” assured Merriwell, smiling, triumphant.

“And all that money is yourn?”

“No.”

“Why – why, ther check’s made out to yeou.”

“Because the treasure was deposited by me.”

“And yeou faound it?”

“I found it, but I did so while in company with four friends.”

Now Hodge showed still further excitement.

“Those friends were not with you at the moment when you found it,” he said. “I’ve heard your story. You came near losing your life. The mad hermit fought to throw you from the precipice. The way you found the treasure, the dangers you passed through, everything that happened established your rightful claim to it. It belongs to you alone.”

“I do not look at it in that light,” said Frank, calmly and positively. “There were five of us in the party. The others were my friends Diamond, Rattleton, Browning, and Toots.”

“A nigger!” exclaimed Bart. “Do you call him your friend?”

“I do!” exclaimed Merry. “More than once that black boy did things for me which I have never been able to repay. Although a coward at heart so far as danger to himself was concerned, I have known him to risk his life to save me from harm. Why shouldn’t I call him my friend? His skin may be black, but his heart is white.”

“Oh, all right,” muttered Hodge. “I haven’t anything more to say. I was not one of your party at that time.”

“No.”

“I wish I had been.”

“So yeou could git yeour share of the boodle?” grinned Ephraim.

“No!” cried Hodge, fiercely. “So I could show the rest of them how to act like men! I would refuse to touch one cent of it! I would tell Frank Merriwell that it belonged to him, and he could not force me to take it. That’s all.”

“Mebbe the others’ll do that air way,” suggested the Vermont youth.

“Not on your life!” sneered Bart. “They’ll gobble onto their shares with both hands. I know them, I’ve traveled with them, and I am not stuck on any of them.”

“I shall compel them to take it,” smiled Frank. “I am sorry, fellows, that you both were not with me, so I could bring you into the division. I’d find a way to compel Hodge to accept his share.”

“Not in a thousand years!” exploded Bart.

“Waal,” drawled Ephraim, “I ain’t saying, but I’d like a sheer of that money well enough, but there’s one thing I am sayin’. Sence Hodge has explained why he wouldn’t tech none of it, I be gol-dinged if yeou could force a single cent onter me ef I hed bin with yeou, same as them other fellers was! I say Hodge is jest right abaout that business. The money belongs to yeou, Frank, an’ yeou’re the only one that owns a single dollar of it, b’gosh!”

“That’s right, Ephraim,” nodded Hodge. “And there isn’t another chap in the country who would insist on giving away some of his money to others under similar circumstances. Some people might call it generosity; I call it thundering foolishness!”

“I can’t help what you call it,” said Frank; “I shall do what I believe is right and just, and thus I will have nothing to trouble my conscience.”

“Conscience! conscience! You’ll never be rich in the world, for you have too much conscience. Do you suppose the Wall Street magnates could have become millionaires if they had permitted their conscience to worry them over little points?”

“I fancy not,” acknowledged Merry, shaking his head. “I am certain I shall never become wealthy in just the same manner that certain millionaires acquired their wealth. I’d rather remain poor. Such an argument does not touch me, Hodge.”

“Oh, I suppose not! But it’s a shame for you to be such a chump! Just think what you could do with forty-three thousand dollars! You could give up this show business, you could go back to Yale and finish your course in style. You could be the king-bee of them all. Oh, it’s a shame!”

“Haow much’ll yeou hev arter yeou divide?” asked Ephraim.

“The division will give the five of us eight thousand seven hundred and forty-six dollars and eighty cents each,” answered Frank.

“He’s figured that up so quick!” muttered Hodge.

“I snum! eight thaousan’ dollars ain’t to be sneezed at!” cried the Vermonter.

“It’s a pinch beside forty-three thousand,” said Bart.

“Yeou oughter be able to go back to college on that, Frank.”

“He can, if he’ll drop the show business,” nodded Bart.

“And confess myself a failure! Acknowledge that I failed in this undertaking? Would you have me do that?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t confess anything of the sort. What were you working for? To go back to Yale, was it not?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I don’t suppose you expected to make so much money that you would be able to return with more than eight thousand dollars in your inside pocket?”

“Hardly.”