is it, then?" Hamar grunted. "Have you both got cancer?"
"No! We've come to borrow from you!"
"Then you've come to the wrong shop! I'm about done, and unless something turns up mighty quick I shall clear out."
"For good?"
"I don't count on being a ghost nor yet an angel," Hamar said; "when we've done here, I reckon we've done altogether!"
"I shouldn't have thought suicide was in your line," Curtis remarked. "More Matt's. I should have credited you with something more original."
"Original!" Hamar snarled. "I defy any man to be original when he hasn't a cent, and his stomach contains nothing but air. Give me money, give me food—then, perhaps, I'll be original."
"You don't mean to say you're cleared out of grub!" Kelson and Curtis cried in chorus. "We've come to you as our last hope. We've neither of us tasted anything since yesterday."
"Then you'll taste nothing again to-day—at least as far as I'm concerned," Hamar jeered. "I tell you I'm broke—haven't as much as a crumb in the room; and I've pawned everything, save the clothes you see me in!"
"And yet you can buy books—unless—unless you stole it!" Curtis said, eyeing with suspicion the volume Hamar had thrown on the table.
"Buy it! Not much!" Hamar cried quickly. "It's one I've had all my life. Belonged to my grandfather. I took it with me to-night to see what I could raise on it."
"And no one would have it? I should guess not," Kelson said, drawing it towards him. "Why it's got a new label inside—S. Leipman! I know him. He's slick even for a Jew. This looks as if it belonged to your grandfather, Leon. If I'm not real mistaken you bought the book to-night. There's something in it you thought you could make capital of. Trust you for that. Now I wonder what it was!"
"You're welcome to see!" Hamar sneered. "Perhaps you'd like some water!"
"Water! Why water?"
"Well, instead of tea or whisky to help digest the book. Besides, it's the only thing I have to offer you."
"Look here, Leon," Curtis interrupted; "what's the good of behaving like this? We are all in the same boat—starving—desperate. So let us lay our heads together and see if we can't think of something—some way out of it."
"A Burglary Company Limited, for instance!" Hamar sneered. "No! I'm not having any. I've neither tools nor experience. The San Francisco police handle one roughly, so I'm told, and hard labour isn't to my liking."
"There are other things besides burglary!" Curtis said in tones of annoyance. "We might work a fake."
"If I work anything of that sort," Hamar said hastily, "I work alone. Think of something else."
"I tell you Matt and I are pretty well desperate," Curtis cried, "and if we don't think of something soon, we shan't be able to think at all. We've tried our level best to get work—we've answered every likely and unlikely advertisement in the papers—and all to no purpose. So if Providence won't help us we must help ourselves. Robbery, burglary, fakes, anything short of murder—it's all the same to us now—we're tired of starving—dead sick of it. We would do anything, sell our very souls for a meal. My God! I never imagined how terrible it is to feel so hungry. You appear to be interested, Matt. What is it?"
"Why, look here, you fellows!" Kelson said slowly. "This book is all about a place called Atlantis that is said to have existed in the Atlantic Ocean between America and Ireland, and to have been deluged by an earthquake owing to the wickedness of its inhabitants. They practised sorcery."
"Practised foolery," Hamar said. "It's tosh—all tosh! Wickedness is only a matter of climate—and there's no such thing as sorcery."
"So I thought," Kelson replied; "but I'm not so sure now. The author of this book writes darned sensibly, and is apparently at no loss for corroborative testimony. He was a professor too. See! Thomas Henry Maitland, at one time Professor of English at the University of Basle in Switzerland. There's an asterisk against his name and a footnote in very old-fashioned handwriting—the 's's' are all 'f's,' and half the letters capitals. Listen—
"'Thomas Maitland, despite the remonstrances of his friends, visited Spain. By order of the Holy Inquisition he was arrested, May 5, 1693, on a charge of practising sorcery, and burned alive at the Auto da Fé, in the Grand Market Square, Madrid; having in the interim been subjected to such tortures as only the subtle brains of the hellish inquisitors could devise. On receipt of a message from him, delivered in his supernatural body, we attended his execution, and can readily testify that he suffered no pain, although the torments endured by those around him were pitiable to behold.
"(Signed) George Richard Pool, Physician; and Robert James Fox, Merchant.
"Citizens of Boston, Massachusetts; August 1, 1693.'"
"Rot!" Hamar said savagely; "don't waste time reading such bunkum."
"It may be bunkum, but if it takes away his mind from his stomach let him go on," Curtis interposed. "It's very obvious you haven't arrived at our pitch of starvation yet, Leon, or you would welcome anything that would make you forget it even for a moment. Let's hear some more, Matt! Go on, tell us something. How to make coyottes out of paraffin paint, or convert a Sunday pair of pants into a glistening harem skirt! Anything that won't remind us of food."
Thus encouraged Kelson slowly turned over the pages of the book. "I see it was printed and published for—I presume that means by—A. Bettesworth and J. Batley in Pater-noster-Row, London, England, in 1690. Basle, London, Boston, Madrid! The author seems to have had wandering on the brain. By the bye, Leon, with your features you could easily work off a fake as 'the Wandering Jew.' There's money in it—people will swallow anything in that line now."
"I don't see how it would profit you anyhow," Hamar snarled. "Leave my features alone and go on with your reading."
Kelson chuckled—here was one way at least in which he could occasionally get even with Hamar. Hamar's features were Yiddish, and the Yids were none too popular in California.
"Oh, all right!" he said; "if the subject is so painful I'll try and avoid it in future; but it's odd how some things—for instance, murder and noses—will out. Let me see, what have we here? 'Discovery of ancient books, manuscripts, etc., relating to Atlantis.' Apparently, Thomas Maitland, when shipwrecked on an island, called Inisturk, off Mayo, in Ireland, found a wooden chest of rare workmanship—he had seen, he says, similar ones in Egypt and Yucatan—containing some very ancient books—curiously bound, and some vellum manuscripts, which, after an infinite amount of labour, he managed to translate. The books, he says, were standard histories, biographies, and scientific works on occultism—all published in Banchicheisi, the capital of Atlantis—and the manuscripts, he affirms, had been transcribed by one Coulmenes, who believed himself to be the only survivor of a tremendous submarine earthquake that had destroyed the whole of Atlantis. The manuscripts included a diary of the events leading up to the catastrophe—even to the meals! How about this?—'Sunrise on the day of Thottirnanoge in the month of Finn-ra. Breakfasted on cornsop, fish (Semona, corresponding to salmon), fruit, and much sweet milk.'"
"For God's sake, don't!" Curtis groaned. "Skip over that part. The very mention of grub makes the gnawing pain in my stomach ten times worse."
"You're different to me then!" Hamar grinned; "I love to think of it. My word, what wouldn't I give to be in Sadler's now. Roast beef—done to a turn, eh! As only Sadler knows how! Potatoes nice and brown and crisp! Horseradish! Greens! Boiled celery! Pudding under the meat! Beer!—What, going?"
Curtis had risen from the table with his fingers crammed in his ears. "There's a fat splice of the devil in you to-night, Leon!" he panted. "I've had enough of it. I'm off. Come on, Matt. If you want us, you know where to find us—only if we don't get something to eat soon—you'll find us dead."
CHAPTER II