THE STEAM-SHOVEL MAN
my own. I'll say nothing about it till the lad gets a job. Then he can square it."
Thereupon he wrote to Mr. Horatio Goodwin as follows:
Dear Sir: Your son will be unable to attend to his affairs for a few days, so I am sending the enclosed amount which had been advanced against his salary account.
Yours truly,
P. S.—He is in the Ancon Hospital, a bit mussed up but nothing serious. He will write soon.
"There! I may be guilty of committing something or other under false pretences, but I feel a whole lot easier in my mind," quoth the steam-shovel man.
Next morning that bland dynamite expert, Naughton, came to the hospital to show Walter that his friends in Cristobal had not forgotten him.
"What about the base-ball practice?" demanded the patient. "Have you found another pitcher?"
"No. We haven't given you up as a total loss."
80
