"Twenty or thirty thousand dollars!" exclaimed Dave Porter. "Why, how can that be, Phil?"
"Did he make a bad investment?" asked Ben Basswood, another youth of the group.
"You can hardly call it a bad investment, Ben," returned Phil. "Buying the land was all right enough in the first place. It's trying to get rid of it that's the sticker."
"You are talking in riddles, Phil," said Roger Morr. "Won't you explain?"
"Maybe Phil doesn't care to explain," broke in Dave Porter, quickly. "It may be his father's private business, you know."
"Oh, I don't think he'll object to my telling you the details," responded the shipowner's son. "It isn't very much of a secret where we live, or in East Haven."
"East Haven? Is that the place across the river from where you live?" queried Dave Porter.
"Yes. It's quite a bustling little town, too, although when my father and his older brother, Lester Lawrence, bought the tract of land there it didn't amount to much, and they got the ground for a song."
"I'd like to buy some land for a song," put in another youth of the group. "Then I might sell it and make a handsome profit. Say," he continued, his face brightening up, "that puts me in mind of a story. Once there was a man who wanted to——"
"Hold on, Shadow. It isn't your turn to tell stories now," interrupted Dave. "We want to hear what Phil has to say."