"So do I. I tell you it made me mad to see him driving around with those kid gloves and going to that saloon. What did he go there for?"
"He had some business with Barlow, I suppose," said Bob, who had not yet got into the way of telling Hank everything he wanted to know. "Now, Hank, what have you been doing since I have been gone? Have you made your fortune?"
"No, I haven't," said Hank, looking out over the sea. "Father goes sometimes for a month without doing any work at all, and then he wants some money and he goes to mother for it. If I had a hundred dollars he would soon get it away."
"What makes your mother let him know she has any money?"
"She can't help it. He looks at what comes on the table and makes his calculations from that. I tell you father is a sharp one. But I have something I want to show you," said Hank, thrusting his hand into his pocket and hauling out a parcel carefully wrapped up in several pieces of paper. "I carried it loose in my pocket until I went hunting with a man from Baltimore, and I showed it to him. He offered me five dollars for it, and furthermore he seemed so determined to have it that it was all I could do to take it away from him. That made me think that if it was worth five dollars it was worth more, and so I wrapped it up, being resolved to show it to you and Leon Sprague. Now tell me if I made a mistake in not taking five dollars for it."
Bob gave up the wheel to Hank, took the parcel, and found inside of it a fresh-water pearl about the size of a pea. Bob didn't know anything about pearls. He was acquainted with the fact that where they were found it was necessary to dry the oysters in order to discover them, and that a teacupful of them was worth a hundred thousand dollars, and he didn't think this pearl of Hank's was worth much.
"It is as clear as crystal, isn't it?" said Bob, holding it up to the light. "Where did you find it?"
"On a little stream up here," replied Hank; "and there are more of them there, too. But I see very plainly by your looks that I made a mistake in not accepting five dollars for it."
"You mustn't judge anything by me," replied Bob, hastily, "because I don't know what it is worth. Let me have it and I will ask the jeweller. He will know something about it."
"Oh, he will laugh at me. The idea of asking him what a fresh-water pearl is worth!"