d.

"Oh, I forgot you had just arrived. Four bits is fifty cents. Well, I
was reduced to that, and, instead of saving it for my dinner, I went in
there and risked it. If I had been lucky, I might have raised it to ten
dollars, as a man next to me did; but I'm out of luck, and I don't know
what to do."

"Why don't you go back to your uncle in New York?"

"What! and walk all the way without food?" said Gregory, bitterly.

"Of course you couldn't go without money. Suppose you had the money,
would you go?"

"I should be afraid to try it," said Gregory, smiling.

"Why? Don't you think he would receive you back?"

"He might but for one thing," answered Gregory.

"What is that?"

"I may as well tell you, though I am ashamed to," said Gregory,
reluctantly. "I left New York without his knowledge, and, as I knew he
wouldn't advance me money out of my own property, I took five hundred
dollars from his desk."

"That was bad," said Hector, quietly, but he didn't look shocked or
terror-stricken, for this would probably have prevented any further
confidence.

"It wasn't exactly stealing," said Gregory, apologetically, "for I knew
he could keep back the money from my property. Still, he could represent
it as such and have me arrested."

"I don't think he would do that."

"I don't want to run the risk. You see now why I don't dare to go back
to New York. But what on earth I am to do here I don't know."

"Couldn't you get employment?" asked Hector, for he wished Gregory to
understand his position fully.

"What! in this shabby suit? Respectable business men would take me for a
hoodlum."

Hector knew already that a "hoodlum" in San Francisco parlance is a term
applied to street loafers from fifteen to twenty-five years of age, who
are disinclined to work and have a premature experience of vice.

"Suppose you were assured that your uncle would receive you back and
give you another chance?"

Gregory shook his head.

"I don't believe he would, and I am afraid I don't deserve it. No,
I must try to get to the mines in some way. How are you fixed?" said
Gregory, turning suddenly to Hector. "Could you spare a five-dollar gold
piece for a chap that's been unfortunate?"

"Perhaps I might; but I am afraid you would go back into the gambling
house and lose it, as you did your other money."

"No, I won't; I promise you that. Four bits was nothing. Five dollars
would give me a chance of going somewhere where I could earn a l