"
"Your business doesn't seem to pay, then?"
"Don't you make fun of me, or I'll wring your neck!
Just hand over your money and be quick about it!
I haven't time to stand fooling here all day."
A bright idea came to Carl. He couldn't spare
the silver coin, which constituted all his available wealth,
but he still had the counterfeit note.
"You won't take all my money, will you?"
he said, earnestly.
"How much have you got?" asked the tramp,
pricking up his ears.
Carl, with apparent reluctance, drew out the
ten-dollar bill.
The tramp's face lighted up.
"Is your name Vanderbilt?" he asked.
"I didn't expect to make such a haul."
"Can't you give me back a dollar out of it?
I don't want to lose all I have."
"I haven't got a cent. You'll have to wait till
we meet again. So long, boy! You've helped
me out of a scrape."
"Or into one," thought Carl.
The tramp straightened up, buttoned his
dilapidated coat, and walked off with the
consciousness of being a capitalist.
Carl watched him with a smile.
"I hope I won't meet him after he has discovered
that the bill is a counterfeit," he said to himself.
He congratulated himself upon being still the possessor
of twenty-five cents in silver. It was not much,
but it seemed a great deal better than being penniless.
A week before he would have thought it impossible that
such a paltry sum would have made him feel comfortable,
but he had passed through a great deal since then.
About the middle of the afternoon he came
to a field, in which something appeared to be
going on.
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