CHAPTER XIII

PETE WRITES HOME

“Of course,” said Allan, “we’re not terribly poor, but it’s going to make a good deal of difference to us.”

The new term was three days old and Allan and Pete were sitting in front of the stove in Pete’s study. The stove was a recent addition to the furnishings, and installed more in deference to his friends’ demands than from any desire of his own. Pete didn’t mind a little cold; just so long as he could find enough water under the ice in the pitcher to wash with, he was satisfied. But Allan and Hal and Tommy made disparaging remarks about his heating arrangements and ostentatiously kept their hats and coats on while visiting him, and so Pete bought a base-burner and a half ton of coal.

“What mine is it?” asked Pete.

“The Gold Beetle. Ever hear of it? It’s out in your State.”

“Is it at Rico?” asked Pete.

“Yes, that’s the place. Didn’t you say you were there last summer?”

“Yes, and I know--something about the mine.” Pete looked thoughtfully at the flames dancing behind the mica. “Fact is,” he continued, “the old man is interested in it.”

“Really? Then don’t you think it will be all right? He wouldn’t have anything to do with a poor mine, would he?”

“Well, the trouble is you can’t always tell whether a mine’s good or bad. The old man’s got stock in all kinds; some of it’s good, some of it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. I’ve got a lot of that kind myself. I used to think I was something of an investor. Now, this Gold Beetle; what’s probably happened to that is that the pay ore has given out. It very often does. A mine’ll run thousands to the ton for two or three years, sometimes twenty, and then all of a sudden the lode will just naturally peter out. I guess that’s what’s happened to the Beetle. I remember pretty well how it lies. There are paying properties all around it, and maybe if they went on or opened up new drifts they’d come across fresh lodes; or maybe they wouldn’t; it’s just a gamble. I dare say the stockholders aren’t willing to put any money into it. How much stock do your folks hold?”

“I don’t know exactly. Pretty nearly half of it, I think.”

“Too bad! I’ll ask the old man, when I write, what he thinks about it.”

“I wish you would. Maybe if he owns some of it we could--could kind of get together and--and do something,” said Allan, vaguely but hopefully.

“Maybe,” answered Pete, thoughtfully. “Meanwhile----”

“Meanwhile I’ve got to find some way of making a little money; enough to pay my board, at any rate. And that’s why I ought to leave the table, Pete, and go back to commons, where I can feed for less.”

“But we can’t let you do that. Now, look here; you don’t eat very much. What’s the sense in your paying as much as I do, who eat twice as much? That’s plumb foolish! I ought to pay at least eight dollars and you oughtn’t to pay a red cent over four; and that’s the way it’s going to be after this.”

“No, it isn’t,” Allan replied. “If I stay, I’ll pay my share, and that’s six dollars, Pete. I went over yesterday to see if I couldn’t get a place in Brown Hall as a waiter, but there aren’t any vacancies; they told me they had two applications for every place.”

“But you wouldn’t like to wait on table, would you?”

“It isn’t a question of liking. I’ve heard tell of lots of ways of earning money in college, but none of them seem very practical for my case.”

“Well, look here; you figure out how much money you’ll need for the rest of the year and let me know.”

Allan looked puzzled.

“What good would that do?”

“I’ll lend it to you. Now, shut up! I haven’t offered to give it to you, have I, you chump? You can pay me back any time you like; there isn’t a bit of a hurry. And I’ve got a whole lot of money in bank from last term. Somehow, it’s mighty hard to get rid of money up here. You needn’t say anything to any one about it; it’ll just be between you and me. That’s all right, ain’t it?”

“No, it isn’t all right, Pete, but it’s awfully good of you, and I won’t forget it in a hurry.”

And although Pete threatened and coaxed and called names, he was at last forced to abandon the proposition. And in the end it was Tommy who, learning of Allan’s quandary, made the suggestion which led to a measure of success.

“I knew a fellow at school who used to go around to the fellows’ rooms at night and sell sandwiches and wienerwursts and made good money,” said Tommy. “Wouldn’t care for that, though, I guess?”

Allan acknowledged that he wouldn’t.

“Then there was a fellow I heard of who was agent for a sporting-goods firm and sold on commission. He worked up quite a trade, but it took him a good while to do it. Then there was a fellow had a rental business: rented rooms and got a commission from the landladies; but he did most of his business in the fall. Then--” Tommy paused, struck by a brilliant thought. “You might try for a place on the Purple,” he cried. “They elect new men in March. If you got a place, you’d make fair money from March on to the end of the year. That’s what I did last year, and I made enough to pay my board.”

“But I don’t know anything about reporting, Tommy,” Allan objected. “Besides, I’m not a hustler like you.”

Tommy looked disappointed. He thought for a minute in silence. Then--

“I tell you, Allan,” he said, “I’ll see Stearns. He’s track-team captain, you know. I’ll tell him that if you don’t find something to do, you won’t be able to stay here. And he won’t want to lose you, you can bet, because he’s set his heart on winning from Robinson this spring.”

“But I don’t know that that would be quite true,” Allan objected. “Because, even if I don’t find any work, maybe I’ll be able to hang on here somehow to the end of the year.”

“Well, I won’t lie to him,” said Tommy, “but I’ll fix him so he’ll find something; you see if I don’t.”

He lifted Two Spot off his lap and deposited her on the desk, where she subsided contentedly against a pile of books and purred on as though nothing had happened.

“Happy little bunch of fur, isn’t she?” asked Tommy. “If she’s too great an expense to you, I’ll take her off your hands.”

“Indeed, you’ll not!” answered Allan. “While there’s a loaf left in the house, she shall have the crust.”

“Scratch him, Kitty! Say, did Pete tell you he’d gone out for the freshman hockey team? Won’t he be a sight on the ice?”

“He says he can skate,” answered Allan. “All I know is, I don’t want to have the thingamabob--puck--when he’s bearing down on me.”

“Are you going to play?”

“No; I’d like to, but I guess I won’t have time. Besides, I don’t skate very well.”

“Skating isn’t everything in hockey,” said Tommy, wisely. “I can skate myself. I can make the ice look like a picture in a book or a map of China; but last year, when I went out for the freshman team, I was nearly slaughtered. Leroy butted me into the boards and somebody else cracked me over the shins with his stick and another chap tripped me up--accidentally, _of_ course--and I slid thirty-one feet or thereabouts on my head. The hair didn’t grow back for a month. I quit. Life was too precious.”

“Wise youth!” commented Allan. “But we mustn’t miss seeing Pete play. Let’s go over to the rink to-morrow, if there is any ice.”

“All right. And I guess there’ll be ice; it’s cold enough now to freeze a door-knob. Going down to Pete’s this evening? I’ll see you there, then. So long. Good-by, Two Spot, my angel child!”

Tommy’s plan bore fruit. Allan had a visit from Walter Stearns next day, and two days later Allan was giving two hours out of each twenty-four to clerical work in the office of the Erskine College Athletic Association.

The work, which consisted chiefly of answering letters from Professor Nast’s dictation--Professor Nast was chairman of the Athletic Committee--was ridiculously easy, if somewhat uninteresting, and seemed out of all proportion to the remuneration, which was one dollar an hour. There were five working days in the week for Allan, and as a result he was earning ten dollars a week--twice as much as he had hoped for. And all the time he was disturbed by a haunting thought that, when all was said and done, he was not really earning the money. But it seemed absurd to find fault with his good fortune so long as his employers were satisfied, and so he offered no objections. Afterwards he marveled at his blindness.

About this time Pete wrote one of his semi-occasional letters to his father. He wasn’t much of a letter-writer, and the epistle as a whole would not interest us, but a portion of it merits attention.

“I remember (he wrote) that you said in New York you’d been down town to a meeting of the Gold Beetle stockholders, and that they had voted to stop work on the mine. I didn’t know then that Allan’s folks were interested in it. I guess they haven’t dismantled yet, and so it isn’t too late to change your mind. I guess you have enough stock in it to control it; if you haven’t, the Wares’ shares will give you the whip-hand. I want you to have them go ahead with the Gold Beetle and fuss round some. A couple of months’ work won’t break anybody. You can charge your share of it up to me. There must be pay ore somewhere on the property. Look at all the gold that’s coming out all around it. Allan’s folks need the money. It’s about all the income they have. If that stops, his sister will have to give up her college, and so will Allan. Allan’s my side partner, and I’m not going to have him lose what property he has without another try. Let me know right away about this.”