"For land's sake! The poor boy!" cried mother, patting Shelley's shoulder.
"'An hour's delay might mean the loss of everything in the world to me, even you. For if I lost any time, and the man escaped me, there was no hope of winning my case, and everything, even you, as I said before, depended on him——'"
"Good Lord! I mean land!" cried Leon.
"'If I could catch the train in an hour, I could take a boat at New York, and go straight through with no loss of time. So I wrote you a note that probably said more than I would have ventured in person, and paid a boy to deliver it.'"
"Kept the money and tore up the note, I bet!" said May.
"'I wrote on the train, but found after sailing that I had rushed so I had failed to post it in New York. I kept on writing every day on the boat, and mailed you six at Liverpool. All the time I have written frequently; there are many more here that this envelope will not hold, that I shall save until I hear from you.'"
"Well, well!" said father.
"'Shelley, I beat death, reached my man, got the testimony I had to have, and won my case.'"
"Glory!" cried mother. "Praise the Lord!"
"'Then I scoured England, and part of the continent, hunting some interested parties; and when I was so long finding them, and still no word came from you, I decided to come back and get you, if you would come with me, and go on with the work together.'"