"Here, Hank, I don't want you to do this for nothing," he said, putting his hand into his pocket.
"Do you suppose I am going to take pay for the first sailboat ride I have had for many a day?" said Hank. "Keep that until the first time I go fishing with you. Good-bye."
"I didn't tell him that we have had nothing but bread and tea for the last four or five days, and that I am getting awful tired of that style of living. But then Bob isn't worth as much as he used to be, and I don't believe in bothering him. Dear me, I wish that pearl would be worth fifteen dollars at least. I tell you, it wouldn't take me long to get something for mother to eat," he said to himself as he closed the gate behind him and started for the place he called home. "But I shall have no such luck as that. I've got to work for every cent I get."
"Now, Ben," said Bob, when Hank had passed out of hearing, "I am going down town."
"I guess you had better keep away from there," said Ben, slowly shaking his head. "A boy who will go to town as you did—"
"I know all about that; but then I can speak to Mr. Gibbons about it to-morrow. You can go with me, if you like."
"No; I believe I'll stay and work in the garden. I've been neglecting it of late, and now that I have got two to provide for I think I had better bestow some attention on it. You're sure you ain't a-going to see that lawyer again?"
"Not until to-morrow. Good-bye!"
"I am going as straight to that jeweller as I can go," he soliloquized. "I have been thinking a good deal about this pearl, and I don't see why it shouldn't be worth money, seeing that they make so much out of them in Wisconsin. At any rate, I'm going to ask him."
Bob met many friends he knew on the street, and was obliged to stop and shake hands with them, but in due time he reached the jeweller's store. He found the jeweller there, but he was engaged in waiting upon somebody who was a stranger to him; but he shook hands with Bob, and said he would attend to him in a few minutes, so Bob had nothing to do but look around the store. The stranger was satisfied at last, and then the man turned to him and wanted to know when he had returned.