Burt Standish - Frank Merriwell's New Comedian - or, The Rise of a Star

“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.”

“Then what is crawling over you? If you are fool enough to make this silly division, you can go back with money enough to take you through your course in style.”

“And have the memory of what happened in this town last night rankle in my heart! Hardly! I made a speech from the stage last night, in which I said I would play again in this city, and I promised that the audience should be satisfied. I shall keep that promise.”

“Oh, all right! I suppose you’ll be thinking of rewarding the ladies and gentlemen who called here a short time ago and attempted to bulldoze you?”

“I shall see that the members of the company, one and all, are treated fairly. I shall pay them two weeks salary, which will be all they can ask.”

Hodge got up, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and stared at Frank, with an expression on his face that was little short of disgust.

“You beat them all!” he growled. “I’d do just like that – I don’t think! Not one of those people has a claim on you. I’d let them all go to the deuce! It would be serving them right.”

“Well, I shall do nothing of the sort, my dear fellow.”

“I presume you will pay Lloyd Fowler two weeks salary?”

“I shall.”

Bart turned toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going out somewhere all alone by myself, where I can say some things about you. I am going to express my opinion of you to myself. I don’t want to do it here, for there would be a holy fight. I’ve got to do it in order to let off steam and cool down. I shall explode if I keep it corked up inside of me.”