University of Virginia Library

STRIKING A BONANZA.

A GENTLEMAN named Parkington, living on Mulford Street, was awakened from a sound sleep on Friday night by a heavy knocking on not only his front-door, but over the entire front of the house. It was a violent slamming, and calculated to awake even a boy. Mr. Parkington got out of bed, and hurried to his window which faced the street. He looked out upon a spectacle that brought a countless host of goose-pimples to his legs, and filled him with unbounded astonishment. A man, a stranger, with a long pole in his hand, was slapping it against the front of the building. As soon as Mr. Parkington could recover his senses, he shouted to the party below,—

"Who are you? What are you doing that for?"

The striking ceased at once. The stranger

brought the pole to a rest at his side, and touched his hat with true military etiquette; and the face that was turned up to Mr. Parkington was rugged in feature, bronzed by the weather, but beaming in expression.

"Well, what is it?" asked Mr. Parkington after a moment of hesitation, in which he saw that the face was not that of a bad man.

"Oh! you are there, are you?" asked the stranger.

"Certainly," replied Mr. Parkington in a tone of confidence.

"You will pardon me, I hope," said the stranger, smiling agreeably, "for awaking you at this unseemly hour?"

Mr. Parkington was prone to grant the pardon; but his eye caught sight of the pole, and he hesitated.

"What did you make such a row for?" he asked.

"Oh! that was merely a matter of ceremony," explained the stranger. "I could have aroused you at the door; but I know your position in society" (Mr. Parkington keeps a feed-store), "and I wanted to show you a little distinction."

"Who are you?" asked Mr. Parkington in a softened voice.

"I am an American," was the reply, distinctly uttered.

"What do you want?"

"Would you like to make five hundred thousand dollars?" was the somewhat startling interrogation.

"Five hundred thousand dollars?" repeated Mr. Parkington in astonishment.

"Yes, sir; that's what I said," replied the stranger. "An outlay of fifty dollars, with judgment, will accomplish this fortune. I have got the whole secret and the judgment; and, if you can raise the fifty dollars, I will let you go in with me; and the thing is done,—the half million dollars is ours."

"Why, what do you mean?" asked Mr. Parkington in some bewilderment.

"You know Stanley is in Africa, looking for the sources of the Nile?"

"Yes; but"—

"All right, don't interrupt me. There is a world-wide interest in the subject; and, when Stanley finds the source of that mysterious river, there are going to be millions of people flock there. Now, what I propose to you, if you have got fifty dollars to put into the enterprise, is this, that we both go there as soon as convenient, and start an eating-saloon. What do you say?"

Within the brief space of thirty seconds, a man with a pair of pants held on to him by clutching the waistband with one hand, while the other clinched a club, was coming off the front-stoop like a whirlwind, while the projector of an eating-

saloon in Africa was scampering out of the gate with no less enthusiasm.