CHAPTER XI.
TOM'S NEW YACHT.
Had a thunderbolt fallen upon the wharf and burst at their very feet, Tom could not have been more astonished than he was when these words fell upon his ear. A great lump seemed to be rising up in his throat, his eyes were blinded with tears he could not choke back, and it was only after a desperate effort that he recovered the use of his tongue.
"O, now, Bob, you haven't read that letter right," he almost gasped.
"Yes, I have!" replied the fisher-boy, whose amazement and consternation were fully equal to Tom's. "I read every word of it just as it is written. Here's the letter; read it yourself!"
"O, now, I won't do it!" drawled Tom, who, suddenly losing all his self-control, and forgetting, in his excitement, that people were constantly passing up and down the wharf in plain view, threw himself spitefully down upon the boards and cried aloud.
"I always was the most unlucky boy in the whole world!" he sobbed, "and something is always happening to bother me. I never can do any thing like other fellows. I knew all the time just how it would turn out!"
"You did!" exclaimed Bob. "Then why did you urge me to spend my money so foolishly?"
"O, now, I don't know!" Tom almost yelled. "I'll jump in the harbor!"