“I’ve found it! I’ve found it!” he exclaimed jubilantly.
CHAPTER XXIX
A CLEVER EXPEDIENT
“You see these books,” said Bobby, Billy and Fred and Mouser clustering round him eagerly while he spoke in a low voice. “Well, there’ll be no trouble getting them away from here, because Mooloo already thinks that’s what we came for. He’ll take it as a matter of course that we’ve found them, and he won’t make any difficulty about our taking them back.”
“But who wants to take them back?” broke in Mouser. “They’re as heavy as lead and they’re not worth house room to anybody.”
“Just hold your horses,” counseled Bobby. “As far as Mooloo is concerned, they’ll be simply books that we’re taking back. But they won’t really be books. They’ll be the treasure.”
The others looked at Bobby as though he were crazy.
“Come again,” said Fred, as he scratched his head in perplexity. “I don’t get you.”
“When I was at home during the Christmas holidays,” went on Bobby, “my father was reading aloud from the paper about some of the tricks that are used in smuggling. One of them is to take a big book, scoop out the pages in the center and fill the space with diamonds. Now what those fellows did with the diamonds we’ll do with the money.”
A shout arose that was instantly repressed for fear that Mooloo would hear.