Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/275



NCE back in Callao we began looking bout for some means of earning a daily crust. Tib was fearfully impatient to escape the town, but never once did he mention the fortune I had lost from my insecure belt. From a plane of plethoric affluence, you see, we had dropped to absolute poverty, and realizing I was the innocent cause, my head drooped like the homesick petals of an abducted wild-flower. Breusy had forced a loan on us, although my patron hated like sin to take it, and we could have had passage-money to any place if the old chap hadn't been so stiffly independent. As it was, we took enough to run us economically for a few weeks, and from sun to sun Tib was combing the town for something with gilt on it. He framed up a half-dozen different schemes and as quickly discarded them.

"‘There's good money in each, but they're not soon enough,' he explained, cheerily. 'What we must have is a quick remedy, no slow, lazy spell of