The Coming Wave; Or, The Hidden Treasure of High Rock by Oliver Optic (books to read for beginners .txt) 📗
- Author: Oliver Optic
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"Four hundred and sixty!" exclaimed he, when the task was finished.
"That isn't bad," added Leopold.
"I threw out all the small ones—about twenty of them."
"We will keep those to eat."
In half an hour more there was a tremendous excitement in and around the fish market, caused by the arrival of the fare of mackerel.
[Pg 86]
CHAPTER V. HERR SCHLAGER.Four hundred and sixty mackerel, besides about twenty "tinkers," was a big fare for that season; but when this fish bite they make a business of it and an expert in the art may catch from forty to sixty in a minute. It was exciting work, and the blood of Leopold and Stumpy had been up to fever heat. But this violent agitation had passed away, though it was succeeded by a sensation hardly less exhilarating. Though the fish were caught and in the boat, the game was not played out—to return to the comparison with the gambler. The excitement still continues and would continue until the fish were sold. The great question now was, What would the mackerel bring in the market? Even a difference of a cent in the price of a single fish made four dollars and sixty cents on the whole fare. Leopold had received a large[Pg 87] price the day before, and he could only hope he should do as well on the present occasion. He was almost as deeply moved in regard to the price as he had been in regard to catching the fish.
"I have made a big day's work for me, Le, whatever price they bring," said Stumpy, shortly after he had finished counting the fish. "If you sell them at five cents apiece, I shall have five dollars and three quarters; and that is more than I can generally earn in a week."
"I won't sell them for five cents apiece, Stumpy," replied Leopold, very decidedly.
"If they won't bring any more than that, what are you going to do about it?" laughed Stumpy.
"Mackerel are very scarce this season, and I don't believe they have had any over at Rockland. If the folks in the fish market don't give me ten cents apiece for the lot, I shall sail over there. I am almost sure I can get ten cents for mackerel as handsome as these are. Besides, about all I brought in yesterday were sold before sundown."
"Then I shall be eleven dollars and a half in," added Stumpy. "My mother wants about[Pg 88] so much to make out her interest money. If she don't pay it we shall be turned out doors before the sun goes down on the day it is due."
"Do you think so?" asked Leopold, with a deep expression of sympathy.
"O, I know it. My grandad is an amiable man. He don't put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day, when anybody owes him any money."
"It seems to me I would rather go to jail than owe him a dollar."
"So would I; and I only wish my mother could pay off the mortgage! Things have gone up in Rockhaven, and the place that cost my father eleven hundred dollars seven years ago, is worth eighteen hundred or two thousand now. My affectionate grandpa knows this just as well as my mother; and if he can get the place for the seven hundred we owe him, he will do it. He says it is too expensive a place for poor folks who haven't got anything."
"But if the place is worth two thousand dollars, your mother will get all over the seven hundred, when it is sold," suggested Leopold, who had considerable knowledge of business.
[Pg 89]
"The house and land are worth just what I say; or, at least, they were a year ago, though the war has knocked things higher than a kite just now. Nobody except my loving grandpa has got the ready cash to pay down; and mother thinks the place wouldn't fetch much, if anything, over the mortgage. But in time it will be worth two thousand dollars."
The arrival of the old boat at the wharf, and the commencement of the excitement in and around the fish market, terminated the conversation on Stumpy's worldly affairs. As the dingy craft approached the pier, a crowd gathered at the head of the landing-steps, for it had been noised about the town that Leopold had brought in a fare of mackerel the day before; and people were anxious to know whether he had repeated his good luck.
A great many boats had gone out that morning after mackerel, but none of them had yet returned. Foremost in the crowd on the wharf was Bangs, the senior member of the firm that kept the fish market. He was excited and anxious, though he struggled to be calm and indifferent when Leopold fastened the painter of his boat to the steps.[Pg 90]
"What luck to-day, Le?" shouted Bangs, who could not see the fish, for the careful Leopold had covered them in order to keep them from injury from the sun, and so that the extent of his good fortune might not at once be seen by the idlers on the wharf.
"Pretty fair," replied Leopold, striving to be as calm and indifferent as the dealer in fish on the pier.
"What have you got?" inquired Bangs.
"Mackerel," answered Leopold, as he seated himself in the stern-sheets of the boat, with affected carelessness.
"Tinkers?"
"No; the same sort that I sold you yesterday."
"What do you ask for them?" inquired Bangs, looking up at the sky as though nothing on the earth below concerned him.
"Ten cents," replied Leopold, looking up at the sky in turn, as though nothing sublunary concerned him, either.
"All right," said the dealer, shaking his head, with a kind of smile, which seemed to indicate that he thought the young fisherman was beside[Pg 91] himself to ask such a price, after apparently glutting the market the day before. "That will do for once, Le; but they won't bring ten cents at retail, after all I sold yesterday. I should have to salt them down."
"Very well," added Leopold; "that's my price; and I don't know of any law that compels you to give it, if you don't want to, Mr. Bangs."
The dealer began to edge his way through the crowd towards the fish market, and the idlers hastened to the conclusion that there would be no trade.
"What do you ask apiece for two or three of them?" asked some one on the wharf.
"Twenty cents," answered Leopold. "But I don't care to sell them at retail."
"I will take three, if you will let me have them," added the inquirer.
This conversation startled the head of the fish firm, and he returned once more to the cap-sill of the wharf. He saw that if the young man attempted to sell out his fare at retail, the business of the market would be ruined for that day.[Pg 92]
"I will give you eight cents apiece for all you have," said Bangs.
"You can't buy them at that price. If you don't want them at ten cents apiece, I shall take them over to Rockland," replied Leopold, who did not wish to offend the members of the fish firm, for they had often bought out his fare, and he wished to keep on the right side of them for operations in the future.
Mr. Bangs considered, parleyed, and then offered nine cents; but finally, when Leopold was found to be inflexible, he yielded the point, and agreed to pay the ten cents. The mackerel were unloaded and conveyed to the market, when the sale of them at retail commenced immediately. The fish were so large and handsome that twenty cents did not appear to be a very extravagant price for them, considering the scarcity of the article in the market. In the settlement, Leopold received forty-six dollars; Stumpy's share, according to a standing agreement, was one quarter of the proceeds of the sale; and the eleven dollars and a half which he put into his wallet was quite as satisfactory to him as the thirty-four dollars and a half was to Leopold.[Pg 93] Both of them felt that they had been favored by fortune to an extraordinary degree, and they were very happy. The old boat was sailed back to her usual moorings. The tinkers were equally divided between the young fishermen, and they went home.
By eleven o'clock Stumpy had poured into the lap of his astonished mother the proceeds of his morning's work, and Leopold had informed his father of the second big haul he had made that season. As before, Mr. Bennington—but with some additional cautions—told his son to keep the money he had made.
"The sick man is in a peck of trouble this morning," added the landlord of the Cliff House, when the exciting business of the occasion had been disposed of.
"What's the matter of him?" asked Leopold.
"He has lost his book, his record, or whatever it is," added Mr. Bennington. "He has sent for everybody belonging in the house, including many of the boarders. He wants to see you."
"I'm sure I don't know anything about it,"[Pg 94] replied Leopold, who, judging by what the invalid had said about the book, realized that the loss of it must distress him very much.
"No one seems to know anything about it; and the sick man will have it that some one has stolen the book. I laughed at him, and told him no one would steal such a thing, for it was worth nothing to anybody but himself. But go up and see him, Leopold."
The young man hastened to the room of the sick man. Harvey Barth was certainly very miserable on account of the loss of his diary. He spoke of it as he would have done if it had been some dear friend who had been taken away from him by death; but then he was sick and rather childish, and the people about the hotel pitied and sympathized with him.
"Where did you put it?" asked Leopold, when he had heard all the particulars the steward could give in relation to his loss.
"There isn't any cupboard in this room, and I hadn't any good place to keep it; so I just tucked it into the flue of that fireplace," drawled Harvey, with the frequent hacking which impeded his utterance.[Pg 95]
"That was a queer place to put it," added Leopold.
"I know it was; but I hadn't any better one. I thought it would be safer there than in any other place."
"Are you sure that you put it there?"
"Am I sure that I am a living man at this moment?" demanded Harvey. "That diary is worth more to me than all the rest I have in the world, and I shouldn't forget what I did with it."
But Leopold searched the room in every nook and corner, in spite of the protest of the sick man that it was useless to do so, for he had looked everywhere a dozen times himself. The young man was no more successful than others had been who had looked for the diary.
"Though you value it very highly I suppose the diary is not really worth very much," suggested Leopold.
"There are secrets written out in that book which might be worth a great deal of money to a bad man," replied Harvey, in a confidential tone.
"Well, what do you suppose has become of it?"[Pg 96]
"I'll tell you. I think some one stole it," added the sick man impressively.
"Did any one know about the secrets written down in it?"
"Not that I know of. Some one may have taken it in order to get my account of the wreck of the Waldo. It may affect the insurance on the vessel, or something of that sort, for all I know. I think
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