"
"I thought you hadn't the capital to do that," said Jasper, speaking
with ill-repressed eagerness.
"Nor have I," coolly answered Martin. "The proposition I was about to
make was this--an advance of twenty thousand dollars capital on your
part, to constitute you an equal partner in the mine. But this you
decline."
"Certainly! certainly! I would not have entertained it for a moment."
"Exactly. So I have already inferred. I will, therefore, as just said,
retain this advantage in my own hands. But, Mr. Jasper, I shall need
some help."
The visitor fixed his eyes keenly on the merchant as he said this.
There was a momentary pause. Then he resumed.
"I shall only want about ten thousand dollars, though; and this you
must obtain for me."
"Martin! Do you think I am made of money?" exclaimed Jasper, starting
to his feet, and facing his companion, in the attitude and with the
expression of a man who, finding himself in the presence of an enemy,
assumes the defensive.
"Oh no," was the quiet answer--"not _made_ of money. But, for a
particular friend, you can no doubt, easily raise such a trifle as ten
thousand dollars?"
"Trifle! You mock me, sir!"
"Don't get excited about this matter, Mr. Jasper," coolly returned
Martin, whose name the reader has probably recognised as that of
an agent employed by the merchant and Grind, the lawyer, some years
before, in making investigations relative to the existence of coal on
certain lands not far from Reading, Pennsylvania.
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