Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/203

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THE DRY PLACER
189

sulk long. He was bubbling over with the thought of imminent riches and he could not long keep silent.

"Me, I'm goin' to buy me a steam yot," he said, "Sail round the bloomin' world in it. I'll pick hout the plyces I like best and build a 'ouse in hevery one of 'em hin the style of the country."

"Leaving a wife or so in every one of them?" sneered Healy.

"No, you mucker," said Larkin, cheerfully. "I leave that sort of thing for you."

"Got your eye on some special one?" persisted Healy. But Larkin was not to be drawn. He was too happy in his dreams.

"I knew a guy once 'oo said money was a burden," he went on. "Watch me. Honly I hain't hever goin' broke: I've 'ad hall of that I'm needin' for one lifetime. Hafter a w'ile I suppose I'll settle down. Hafter I've seen the world a bit. I'll land final in the hold country, buy me hup some hold mansion with lots of trees habout it and big lawns for the kids to pl'y hon."

"Whose kids?" asked Healy.

"Not yours," retorted Larkin. "And it's none of your bloody bizness, 'Ealy. I suppose you'll start a Monte Carlo. It's 'ard to quit the sucker gyme, they tell me," he ended.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Healy, angrily. "I've stood about all I'm going to from you, you guttersnipe!"

"Then sit down to it, hold top. And there's worse