"Yes," he said awkwardly, with a slight relaxation of his aggressive attitude; "yes, in course it's more bang-up style, but it don't pay--Rosey--it don't pay. Yer's the Pontiac that oughter be bringin' in, ez rents go, at least three hundred a month, don't make her taxes. I bin thinkin' seriously of sellin' her."As Rosey knew her father had experienced this serious contemplation on the first of every month for the last two years, and cheerfully ignored it the next day, she only said, "I'm sure the vacant rooms and lofts are all rented, father.""That's it," returned Mr. Nott thoughtfully, plucking at his bushy whiskers with his fingers and thumb as if he were removing dead and sapless incumbranees in their growth, "that's just what it is--them's ez in it themselves don't pay, and them ez haz left their goods--the goods don't pay. The feller ez stored them iron sugar kettles in the forehold, after trying to get me to make another advance on 'em, sez he believes he'll have to sacrifice 'em to me after all, and only begs I'd give him a chance of buying back the half of 'em ten years from now, at double what I advanced him. The chap that left them five hundred cases of hair dye 'tween decks and then skipped out to Sacramento, met me the other day in the street and advised me to use a bottle ez an advertisement, or try it on the starn of the Pontiac for fire-proof paint. That foolishness ez all he's good for. And yet thar might be suthin' in the paint, if a feller had nigger luck. Ther's that New York chap ez bought up them damaged boxes of plug terbaker for fifty dollars a thousand, and sold 'em for foundations for that new building in Sansome Street at a thousand clear profit. It's all luck, Rosey."The girl's eyes had wandered again to the pages of her book.
Perhaps she was already familiar with the text of her father's monologue. But recognizing an additional querulousness in his voice, she laid the book aside and patiently folded her hands in her lap.
"That's right--for I've suthin' to tell ye. The fact is Sleight wants to buy the Pontiac out and out just ez she stands with the two fifty vara lots she stands on.""Sleight wants to buy her? Sleight?" echoed Rosey incredulously.
"You bet! Sleight--the big financier, the smartest man in 'Frisco.""What does he want to buy her for?" asked Rosey, knitting her pretty brows.
The apparently ****** question suddenly puzzled Mr. Nott. He glanced feebly at his daughter's face, and frowned in vacant irritation. "That's so," he said, drawing a long breath; "there's suthin' in that.""What did he SAY?" continued the young girl, impatiently.
"Not much. 'You've got the Pontiac, Nott,' sez he. 'You bet!' sez I. 'What'll you take for her and the lot she stands on?' sez he, short and sharp. Some fellers, Rosey," said Nott, with a cunning smile, "would hev blurted out a big figger and been cotched. That ain't my style. I just looked at him. 'I'll wait fur your figgers until next steamer day,' sez he, and off he goes like a shot. He's awfully sharp, Rosey.""But if he is sharp, father, and he really wants to buy the ship,"returned Rosey, thoughfully, "it's only because he knows it's valuable property, and not because he likes it as we do. He can't take that value away even if we don't sell it to him, and all the while we have the comfort of the dear old Pontiac, don't you see?"This exhaustive commercial reasoning was so sympathetic to Mr.
Nott's instincts that he accepted it as conclusive. He, however, deemed it wise to still preserve his practical attitude. "But that don't make it pay by the month, Rosey. Suthin' must be done. I'm thinking I'll clean out that photographer.""Not just after he's taken such a pretty view of the cabin front of the Pontiac from the street, father! No! he's going to give us a copy, and put the other in a shop window in Montgomery Street.""That's so," said Mr. Nott, musingly; "it's no slouch of an advertisement. 'The Pontiac,' the property of A. Nott, Esq., of St. Jo, Missouri. Send it on to your Aunt Phoebe; sorter make the old folks open their eyes--oh? Well, seein' he's been to some expense fittin' up an entrance from the other street, we'll let him slide. But as to that d----d old Frenchman Ferrers, in the next loft, with his stuck-up airs and high-****tin style, we must get quit of him; he's regularly gouged me in that ere horsehair spekilation.""How can you say that, father!" said Rosey, with a slight increase of color. "It was your own offer. You know those bales of curled horsehair were left behind by the late tenant to pay his rent.
When Mr. de Ferrieres rented the room afterwards, you told him you'd throw them in in the place of repairs and furniture. It was your own offer.""Yes, but I didn't reckon ther'd ever be a big price per pound paid for the darned stuff for sofys and cushions and sich.""How do you know HE knew it, father?" responded Rosey.
"Then why did he look so silly at first, and then put on airs when I joked him about it, eh?""Perhaps he didn't understand your joking, father. He's a foreigner, and shy and proud, and--not like the others. I don't think he knew what you meant then, any more than he believed he was ****** a bargain before. He may be poor, but I think he's been--a--a--gentleman."
The young girl's animation penetrated even Mr. Nott's slow comprehension. Her novel opposition, and even the prettiness it enhanced, gave him a dull premonition of pain. His small round eyes became abstracted, his mouth remained partly open, even his fresh color slightly paled.