José — page 302: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JOSE. 295 oat was making the rounds of the friends of his rm. He was met with apparent sympathy; he and Baumann constituted the heroes of many a social gathering, but the universal advise given the former was not to cling to a leaking craft, but to begin afresh undismayed. His spirit of honesty was recognized everywhere, fresh credit placed at his disposal on all sides, but even his best friends would hear nothing of volun- tary sacrifices. Depressed in spirits, if not discouraged, Green finally returned to St. Louis in company with his friends, and very shortly after his arrival the late prosperous business was transferred to the charge of its creditors. Green had wished to pay his partners the rest of the amount realized from the sale of the mules, but it had been rejected as barely nominal in the great general loss, with the injunction not to make a fool of himself, and thus he and Baumann, kept from immediate want by means remaining from former times, had temporarily taken up quarters in the Planters House. Baumann’s critical situation was not asecret to Mary. Previous to their departure from the fort, the overseer had paid the maiden five hundred dol- lars in gold, surplus funds in his possession, and she had insisted upon transferring the money to her affianced, but had only gained her object to the ex- tent that he had consented to appropriate the amount necessary to defray their traveling ex- penses. Baumann, on the other hand, knew that there was still a small capital, an inheritance from her mother, in the hands of Mary’s father. But this was set apart as a special fund for the establishment of a business of some kind for Baumann when a favorable opportunity should offer, and the latter had solemnly vowed to drudge for years in the employ of others rather than trifle with it by risking a probable loss. On receipt of the letters from his einployers he imagined to have found a rare oppor- tunity by associating himself with Green, who Gomicbooks: