"Fancy being pipped by a couple of suckers like these.
Farmers, indeed! Why don't you call yourselves parsons? How much do
you want?"
After a prolonged haggling, Hamar and Curtis agreed to take fifty
dollars; and, considering their penniless condition, they were by no
means dissatisfied with their bargain.
They were now ready to go, and looking round for Kelson, found him
engaged in a desperate _tete-a-tete_ with the young lady at the bar,
who, despite her avowed lack of faith in mankind, counted half the
room her friends. She promised Kelson that she would meet him at eight
o'clock that evening; but as both she and he were quite used to making
such promises and subsequently forgetting all about them, their
rencontre resulted in only one thing, namely, in furnishing the three
allies with the nucleus of the big fortune they intended making.
On finding themselves outside the dive Hamar, Curtis and Kelson first
of all divided the spoil. They then went to a clothes depot and rigged
themselves out in fashionably cut garments; after which they took
rooms at a presentable hotel in Kearney Street, next door to Knobble's
boot store. Then, dressed for the first time in their lives like Nob
Hill dukes, they paraded the pet resorts of the beau-monde--of the
bonanza and railroad set--and making eyes at all the pretty wives and
daughters they met, cogitated fresh devices for making money. As they
sauntered across Pacific Avenue, in the direction of Californian
Street, Kelson suddenly gave vent to a whistle.
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