Toby and Phebe awaited him at the boat-yard wharf and as soon as he had hastily secured the Frolic to the stern of the Follow Me and climbed the ladder they pulled him in triumph to the shed.

“Here he is, dad!” called Toby. “Where is it?”

Mr. Tucker laid down his mallet and led the way to the desk very leisurely. Then, while Toby and Phebe looked on with shining eyes, he placed an envelope in Arnold’s hand. The postmark was “Moorcett, Ct.,” and there was some printing in one corner, but Arnold didn’t stop to read that. Instead, amidst a deep silence, he opened the envelope and drew forth not the folded sheet of paper he expected but a roughly torn section of newspaper. He viewed the others in bewilderment.

“Read it!” cried Toby and Phebe in chorus.

“‘Lost, on Fifth Avenue, between——’”

“No, no! Further down!” said Toby impatiently.

“Oh, further down! ‘Three hundred dollars reward will be paid for the return of mahogany launch Follow Me——’” Arnold gasped and went back to the beginning again. “‘Three hundred dollars’—Gee!”

“Isn’t that corking?” demanded Toby, gleefully.

“Just think of it!” exclaimed Phebe, dancing on her toes amidst the shavings. “Three hundred dollars, Arnold!”

“But—but are you sure this is the—the——”

“Read the whole of it, Arn!” prompted Toby, trying to see over his shoulder. “Read it aloud!”

“‘Three hundred dollars reward will be paid for the return of mahogany launch Follow Me, stolen from my landing at Hastings, N. Y., night of April 27, and no questions asked. Built by Wells & Stotesbury, sixteen feet long, four feet four inches beam, engine six-cylinder Thurston, brass trimmed, name on stern, but possibly painted out. Communicate with Paul Langham Townsend, Hastings-on-Hudson, or Eastern Launch Club, New York City.’

“What do you know about that!” gasped Arnold, and the piece of paper slipped from his fingers to the littered floor.

“You boys are in luck,” said Mr. Tucker. “Not that you don’t deserve it, though; for you do. Now we’ll write to this man Townsend and tell him to come and get her.”

“How long will that take?” asked Arnold eagerly.

Mr. Tucker laughed. “Well, we’ll write this minute, and I guess he’d ought to get it this afternoon. Then, if he’s as anxious as you are, Arnold, he’s likely to be around pretty early tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir! And—and could you say, ‘Bring reward with you,’ or something like that?”

“I guess he’ll have a checkbook handy,” replied Mr. Tucker. “Now, the question is where’ll we send the letter to? New York or Hastings?”

“Hastings, dad,” advised Toby. “He mightn’t be at that club today.”

“That’s so. All right. Elbow room, Phebe! Where’s that pesky pen got to? Oh, here it is. I wonder if there’s a piece of paper here. You don’t happen to see—— Oh, thanks, daughter. Now, then! ‘Mr. Paul——’ What’s the middle part of it, Toby?”

“Paul Langham Townsend.”

“An awful lot of name, ’pears to me. ‘Mr. Paul Langham Townsend, Hastings-on-Hudson, N. Y. Dear sir: This is to inform you that your launch the Follow Me is at Tucker’s boat yard, Greenhaven, L. I., and same can be had by calling and paying reward advertised in the——’ Hold on! What paper’s that now?”

“You can’t tell, sir,” said Arnold. “Better just say ‘in paper.’”

“All right. Got to scratch out ‘the’ though. ‘Reward advertised in paper. Respectfully yours, Aaron Tucker.’ There we are. Now where’s an envelope?”

They dropped the letter in the postoffice at twenty minutes after nine, just in time for the collection, and spent the succeeding half-hour figuring how long it would take Uncle Sam to get it across to New York and then up the Hudson to Hastings. Arnold said they had been silly not to telephone Mr. Townsend instead of writing to him. “Then maybe he’d have come over here this afternoon,” he added.

“It would cost a lot to telephone away up there,” objected Toby.

“A lot! Shucks; it wouldn’t have been more than a dollar, I guess! And what’s a dollar when you’re going to get three hundred?”

“A dollar would be a lot if something happened and we didn’t get the three hundred,” replied Toby. “That launch was stolen a long while ago—over two months ago now—and maybe he’s given her up and has had another one built. If he has he wouldn’t want the Follow Me, I guess.” Toby’s voice sounded almost hopeful at the end, and Arnold observed him in surprise.

“Toby, I really believe you’d rather have that launch than the reward!” he exclaimed.

Toby’s gaze wandered. “I—I don’t know,” he murmured. “She’s an awfully nice little boat!”

“But—but think of a hundred and fifty dollars! Why, you can—you can do almost anything with a hundred and fifty dollars, Toby!”

“I know. It’s a lot of money. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be fine to have it, but——” his voice dwindled away. Arnold looked incredulously at Phebe as he held the gate open. “Anyway,” continued Toby, “I’ll wait until I get my hands on it before I think too much about it!”

Practice was not a great success that afternoon. In the first place, the older boys of the town were using the school diamond and Toby’s team had to do the best they could in a distant corner of the field; in the second place only eight of the ten members showed up, and in the third place Toby’s mind wandered so far from baseball that his companions grew sarcastic and told him frankly that if he didn’t pay more attention to the matter in hand they’d quit. Add these drawbacks to the fact that there was a scarcity of gloves and bats, and that the only mask they possessed had a loose wire that threatened to put the wearer’s eye out every minute, and it will be seen that the Towners labored under disadvantages that Saturday afternoon!

Arnold, although cordially invited to attend the rival aggregation’s practice, had declined, stating his reason to be that he didn’t want to learn the Towners’ signals! Consequently Toby saw no more of him until the next day. When the Tucker family got back from church that noon they found Arnold sitting on the front steps and holding a rather one-sided conversation through the open window with Mr. Murphy. “I’ve been trying to teach him to say, ‘Arnold,’” he explained, “but he just stares and chuckles. I’m going to have dinner with you, if you’ll ask me, Mrs. Tucker.”

“Indeed I will, then! Come right in out of the hot sun, Arnold. You might have gone in the back door and been comfortable. We never lock it from one year’s end to the other.”

“Heard anything yet?” whispered Arnold to Toby as Mr. Tucker unlocked the door.

“Not exactly. Last night they sent for dad to go to the drug store. They said he was wanted on the telephone. But either he couldn’t understand, or the wires were bad, or something. He came stamping back as mad as anything. But they told him it was New York calling, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was he.”

“Must have been! I wish we knew whether he was coming today or not. When is the next train, Toby?”

“Gets to Riverport at 3.12. Then it takes about half an hour to drive over. So he couldn’t get here much before 3.45. Seems to me if he was coming he’d have come this morning. I tried to get dad to let me stay home from church, in case he did, but he wouldn’t see it.”

“You don’t suppose he’s been and gone away again?” gasped Arnold. “You don’t suppose he—you don’t suppose he’s taken the launch?”

“Of course not! He wouldn’t do that, and——”

But Arnold had flown down the steps and across the road and was already hiking through the boat yard! He returned presently, perspiring and panting, but vastly relieved, to report the prize still there. The boys, and Phebe too, for that matter—and perhaps the older folks in spite of their unnatural calm—were too excited to do justice to Mrs. Tucker’s very hearty Sunday dinner. Arnold kept glancing at the old mahogany-framed clock on the mantel, while Toby, although he tried not to appear impatient, turned his head toward the window every time footsteps or carriage wheels sounded in the road below.

But when Toby had proclaimed a quarter to four as the earliest possible moment at which Paul Langham Townsend could reach Greenhaven, he had failed to take into account that magic chariot, the automobile, and so when, just as Mrs. Tucker was serving one of her biggest and juiciest rhubarb pies, a big, dust-covered car came to a stop at the gate, no one was prepared for it.

Less than an hour later the Follow Me was out of sight around Spanish Head, the dust-covered car was gone again, and Toby and Arnold and Phebe were staring awedly at a marvelous slip of blue paper, which bore the legend: “Pay to the order of Tobias Tucker and Arnold Deering Three Hundred Dollars!”

That little piece of paper looked far too tiny to mean what it said!

“It’s a pile of money, isn’t it?” muttered Toby thoughtfully. “But he seemed awfully glad to get his launch back.”

“He’d have paid more than this, I guess,” responded Arnold. “I dare say he’d have given us five hundred if we’d said we had to have it!”

“Why, you’re a regular Shylock, Arnold!” exclaimed Phebe.

“I’m not either,” answered the accused indignantly. “But we had a right to ask more if we’d wanted to. That’s business.”

“I don’t think it’s business,” said Toby quietly, “to make money from people’s misfortunes. I sort of wish we’d just let him have his boat and not said anything about the reward.”

“That’s nonsense,” replied Arnold vigorously. “Mr. Townsend has lots of money and it was worth three hundred dollars to him to have his launch back. And if it hadn’t been for us he wouldn’t have got it again. He’s satisfied, Toby. Don’t you worry.”

“What’ll we do with this?” asked Toby. “We have to put it into a bank or something, eh?”

“Of course. I’ll get father to cash it, if you like. Then we’ll each take half. We have to sign our names on the back, though. Let’s do it now. You sign first, because he put you first.”

But Mr. Tucker, overhearing from the window, vetoed that plan. “You boys had better give that check to me now,” he said. “Tomorrow’s plenty of time for indorsing it. Remember this is the Lord’s day, Toby.”

So they yielded up the fascinating slip of engraved paper, but that didn’t stop them from talking about it or discussing their plans, although, to be exact, it was Arnold only who dwelt on the matter of expenditure. “I am going to have your father build me a twenty-one-footer, Toby, like the Sea Snail he built for Mr. Cushing. She’s a dandy! I suppose it would cost more than a hundred and fifty dollars, but father said yesterday he’d help me pay for it. Then you’re going to show me how to sail it.”

“Mr. Cushing’s Sea Snail is a knockabout,” said Toby. “Wouldn’t you rather have a boat with a cabin house?”

“It would cost a lot more, Toby. No, I don’t think so. I guess father wouldn’t let me do any cruising, and just for sailing around here a boat like the Sea Snail would be fine. Maybe next year I’ll have the Frolic housed in forward. I could, you know. It wouldn’t be any trick at all. I suppose your father wouldn’t like me to ask him about the boat today?”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t.” This from Phebe, and very decidedly. “He never likes to talk business on Sunday. You’d better wait until tomorrow.”

“All right. Say, Toby, you haven’t said what you’re going to do with your half of the money. You could fix up the Turnover and get a new engine for her, if you wanted to.”

But Toby shook his head. “I haven’t decided—yet,” he answered slowly, “but I think I’ll just—just keep it.”

“Now who’s the Shylock?” demanded Arnold triumphantly.

“That’s very different,” said Phebe. “That’s just being saving.”

“I don’t mean that I’m going to keep it forever,” explained Toby defensively. “But I’m going to keep it until I find out what I really want to spend it for. If you put money in a bank they’ll pay you interest, won’t they?”

“Yes, but you won’t get much on a hundred and fifty dollars,” replied Arnold carelessly. “They pay three or four per cent., and that would only be about five or six dollars a year.”

“Six dollars a year,” remarked Toby thoughtfully, “would be a dollar and a half for three months, wouldn’t it? Well, a dollar and a half will take you fifty miles on the railroad.”

“But who wants to go fifty miles on an old railroad?” asked Arnold.

“Well, I was thinking I might. Would you mind asking your father to take my hundred and fifty and put it in a bank for me? He’d be likely to know of one that was perfectly safe, wouldn’t he?”

“Sure! He knows dozens of banks. Why, he has accounts in two or three himself!”

“Then you might ask him to pick out the one he knows best,” said Toby anxiously. “I wouldn’t want to lose that money!”