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.”

“Did you see him go?”

“Why, yes...I...”

“Did you really see him set out on the road and depart?”

“Well, no...I don’t know that I did.  He went around one corner of the house, as I went around the other with Snider...  Why?  What do you mean?”