CHAPTER VII.
TOM ORDERS A NEW BOAT.
For the first time in his life, Bob had deceived his mother, and, as may be imagined, he did not feel very happy over it. His first thought was to get as far away from her as possible; and with this determination he bent his steps toward the wharf, where he sat down to think the matter over. He had never been taught to measure every act of his life by a moral standard, but, heretofore, when any thing had been proposed to him, he had always asked himself the question: Is it honorable and manly, or is it mean and cowardly? This test was applied to the matter in hand, and Bob was, of course, compelled to decide that he had been guilty of an act with which he would not like to have every one in the world acquainted. He knew that he ought to pay the five dollars to Mr. Graves, or, what would have been still better, take it back to his mother, make a clean breast of the whole matter, and be governed by her advice. Once he even got up from the coil of rope on which he was sitting, and started off as if he had resolved to follow this course of conduct; but he had made scarcely half a dozen steps before some of Tom's arguments flashed through his mind. He stopped, hesitated, and finally returned to his seat.
We believe that all boys are more or less inclined to build air-castles. They love to go off alone where there will be no one to disturb them, and spend hour after hour picturing to themselves innumerable pleasant things that will be sure to happen if some of their pet schemes can only be carried out. Some boys keep these dreamings to themselves, while others, like Tom Newcombe, can not rest easy until they have communicated them to some of their particular friends; and when there is one such boy in a neighborhood he sometimes does a great deal of mischief. Tom, for instance, had completely upset the fisher-boy. We know what good resolutions Bob made while he was sailing home from his fishing-grounds, on the previous day, and, no doubt, he would have held to them, if he could have avoided that unfortunate interview with Tom Newcombe. But he had listened to his arguments, been carried away by his eloquence, doubted at first, then believed, and finally ended by becoming as certain of success as was Tom himself. This led him to take two steps in the wrong direction. He had gone in debt for a boat, when he knew all the time that his mother would not approve of it, and then, by leading her to believe that he wanted to pay part of the money down, he had got the five dollars to invest in the lottery. It was no wonder his conscience troubled him. It kept him in a very unpleasant frame of mind, and the arguments he made use of to pacify it ought to have made him ashamed of himself.
"I didn't tell mother that I was honestly and truly going to pay this money to Mr. Graves," said the fisher-boy to himself. "I only said that if I paid some on the boat now, I wouldn't have so much to pay by and by. Wasn't that the truth? Of course it was. I never told a lie in my life, and I never will. I'm in a bad fix," he added, rising to his feet, and walking up and down the wharf, "and this is the only way I can see to get out of it. I must save fifty-six dollars before I can go to sea—twenty-six to pay for my boat, and thirty to support the family while I am gone; and, at the rate I have been making money for the last year, I never will be able to lay by half that sum. I'll have to be a fisherman as long as I live, if I can't find other ways to make something. Now, here's a chance for me to get rich; and wouldn't I be foolish to throw it away? If it fails—but Tom says it can't, and I believe it—I shall be only five dollars out of pocket, and not much worse off than I am now. If it succeeds, and I get half of the five thousand dollars, what can I not do with it? I'll pay for my boat at once; then I'll buy mother a nice house; I'll get some good clothes for myself; I'll send my brothers to school—perhaps the military academy would be the best place for them—then I'll be off to sea. I'll do it; that's settled. I'll find Tom and give him this money before I am five minutes older."
Without stopping to reconsider the matter, the fisher-boy started on a keen run down the wharf, and presently found himself at the door of Mr. Newcombe's office. Tom was seated in his father's arm-chair, his feet upon the desk, a newspaper in his hand, and a pen behind his ear. He happened to be looking out the door as Bob came up, and throwing down his paper, he hurried out to meet him.
"Let's hear what you've got to say!" said he, in a whisper. "Yes or no!"
"Yes," replied the fisher-boy. "Here's the money."