Digging for Gold | Page 3

if he could not
understand the readiness with which his nephew agreed to the proposal,
"why, how's this? I had fully expected you to refuse. Remember, boy, it
is not to be a romantic gold-digger, which is another name for a born
idiot, that I would send you out to California. It is to be a clerk, a
quill-driver. D'you understand?"
"I understand, uncle, perfectly," replied Frank with a smile. "The fact is
that I had made up my mind, lately, not to oppose your wishes any
longer, but to agree to go into an office at home. Of course it is more
agreeable to me to think of going into one abroad."
"I'm glad you take such a sensible view of the matter, Frank," said Mr
Allfrey, much mollified.
"Besides," continued Frank, "I have read a good deal about that country
of late, and the descriptions of the magnificence of the scenery have
made me long to have an opportunity of painting it and--"
He paused abruptly and started up, for his uncle had seized a book,
which usually lay open on his desk, and was in fact a sort of dummy
intended to indicate the "study" that was supposed to go on there. Next
moment Frank sprang laughing into the passage, and the book flew
with a crash against the panels of the door as he shut it behind him,
leaving Mr Allfrey to solace himself with a large meerschaum, almost
the only unfailing friend that he possessed.
Thus it came to pass that Frank Allfrey went out to the gold regions of
California.
CHAPTER TWO.

FRANK DISCUSSES HIS PROSPECTS WITH A FRIEND.
We pass over our hero's long voyage round "the Horn," and introduce
him in a totally new scene and under widely different
circumstances--seated near a magnificent tree of which he is making a
study, and clad in a white linen coat and pantaloons and a
broad-brimmed straw hat.
Just the day before, the "House" to which he had been sent had failed.
Two years had he spent in grinding at its account books, perched on a
three-legged stool, and now he found himself suddenly cast loose on
the world. Of course when the stool was knocked from under him his
salary was stopped, and he was told by his employers that it would be
necessary for him to go elsewhere to earn a subsistence.
This was rather a startling piece of advice, and for a time Frank felt
much depressed, but on returning to his lodgings, the day he received
his dismissal, his eye fell on his palette and brushes, which he at once
seized, and, hastening out to his favourite tree, was soon so thoroughly
absorbed in the study of "nature" that his sorrows vanished like
morning mist.
After three hours' steady work he arose refreshed in soul and
comforted.
Thereafter he returned to his lodgings and sat down to think over his
prospects. His cogitations were temporarily interrupted, and afterwards
materially assisted, by a short thick-set man of about thirty years of age
who entered with a deferential air, and pulled his forelock.
"Come in, Joe. I was just thinking over my future plans, and I daresay
you can assist me, being, I suppose, in the same fix with myself."
Joe Graddy had been a porter in the "House" which had failed, and was
indeed in the "same fix," as Frank said, with himself.
"I've comed, sir," said Joe, "to ax yer advice, an' to offer ye my sarvice,
it it's of any use," said the porter, who was a shrewd straightforward

man, and had originally been a sailor.
"If you had come to offer me advice and ask my services," said Frank,
"I would have been better pleased to see you. However, sit down and
let me hear what you have to say."
"Well, sir," said Joe; "this is wot I've got for to say, that we are in what
the Yankees call a pretty considerable fix."
"I know it, Joe; but how do you think we are to get out of the fix?"
"That's just wot I comed for to ax," said the man; "and when you've
told me how, I'll lend a hand to weigh anchor an' set sail. The fact is,
I'm in want of a place, and I'm willing to engage with you, sir."
Frank Allfrey experienced a strange mingling of feelings when he
heard this. Of course he felt much gratified by the fact that a man so
grave and sensible as Joe Graddy should come and deferentially offer
to become his servant at a time when he possessed nothing but the
remnant of a month's salary; and when he considered his own youth, he
felt amazed that one so old and manly should volunteer to place himself
under