“I warned ye,” said Dan, as the drops fell thick and fast on the dark, oiled planking. “Dad ain’t noways hasty, but you fair earned it. Pshaw! there’s no sense takin’ on so.” Harvey’s shoulders were rising and falling in spasms of dry sobbing. “I know the feelin’. First time Dad laid me out was the last — and that was my first trip. Makes ye feel sickish an’ lonesome. I know.”

“It does,” moaned Harvey. “That man’s either crazy or drunk, and — and I can’t do anything.”

“Don’t say that to Dad,” whispered Dan. “He’s set agin all liquor, an’— well, he told me you was the madman. What in creation made you call him a thief? He’s my dad.”

Harvey sat up, mopped his nose, and told the story of the missing wad of bills. “I’m not crazy,” he wound up. “Only — your father has never seen more than a five-dollar bill at a time, and my father could buy up this boat once a week and never miss it.”

“You don’t know what the ‘We’re Here’s’ worth. Your dad must hev a pile o’ money. How did he git it? Dad sez loonies can’t shake out a straight yarn. Go ahead.”

“In gold mines and things, West.”

“I’ve read o’ that kind o’ business. Out West, too? Does he go around with a pistol on a trick-pony, same ez the circus? They call that the Wild West, and I’ve heard that their spurs an’ bridles was solid silver.”

“You are a chump!” said Harvey, amused in spite of himself. “My father hasn’t any use for ponies. When he wants to ride he takes his car.”

“Haow? Lobster-car?”

“No. His own private car, of course. You’ve seen a private car some time in your life?”

“Slatin Beeman he hez one,” said Dan, cautiously. “I saw her at the Union Depot in Boston, with three niggers hoggin’ her run.”, (Dan meant cleaning the windows.) “But Slatin Beeman he owns ‘baout every railroad on Long Island, they say, an’ they say he’s bought ‘baout ha’af Noo Hampshire an’ run a line fence around her, an’ filled her up with lions an’ tigers an’ bears an’ buffalo an’ crocodiles an’ such all. Slatin Beeman he’s a millionaire. I’ve seen his car. Yes?”

“Well, my father’s what they call a multi-millionaire, and he has two private cars. One’s named for me, the ‘Harvey’, and one for my mother, the ‘Constance’.”

“Hold on,” said Dan. “Dad don’t ever let me swear, but I guess you can. ‘Fore we go ahead, I want you to say hope you may die if you’re lyin’.”