Page:Options (1909).djvu/167

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
BURIED TREASURE
 

education permitted. He dropped the glasses off his nose and glared at me.

“I’ve often told you you were a fool,” he said. “You have let yourself be imposed upon by a clodhopper. And you have imposed upon me.”

“How,” I asked, “have I imposed upon you?”

“By your ignorance,” said he. “Twice I have discovered serious flaws in your plans that a common-school education should have enabled you to avoid. And,” he continued, “I have been put to expense that I could ill afford in pursuing this swindling quest. I am done with it.”

I rose and pointed a large pewter spoon at him, fresh from the dish-water.

“Goodloe Banks,” I said, “I care not one parboiled navy bean for your education. I always barely tolerated it in any one, and I despised it in you. What has your learning done for you? It is a curse to yourself and a bore to your friends. Away,” I said—“away with your water-marks and variations! They are nothing to me. They shall not deflect me from the quest.”

I pointed with my spoon across the river to a small mountain shaped like a pack-saddle.

“I am going to search that mountain,” I

143