"And shall you keep still about this?"
"Certainly. Don't lisp it to anybody. We don't want somebody to come along here and claim to be Haberstro, when perhaps he don't know a thing about what is in the box."
"Of course he would not know a thing about it," said Julian, in surprise. "Haberstro himself don't know what there is in the box. He has got to prove by outside parties that he is the man that we want, or we can put him down as a fraud."
"That's so," said Jack, after thinking a moment. "We must be continually on the lookout for breakers."
Why was it that Jack did not go further, and say that they must be continually on the lookout for the safety of the box when they were not there to watch over it? It was not safe from anybody who knew it was there, and it would have been but little trouble for them to have taken it with them and put it into the hands of Mr. Wiggins. If they had thought of this, no doubt they would have lost no time in acting upon it.
Long before the hands on Jack's watch had reached the hour of half-past six the two friends were on their way toward their places of business, and when Julian reached the office almost the first boy he saw was Casper Nevins, who had denounced them for trying to find out what became of Mr. Haberstro.
"Good-morning, Julian," said he. "Have you advertised for that man of yours yet?"
"What do you want to know for?" said Julian, remembering what Jack had said about keeping the matter still.
"Oh, nothing; only I want to tell you that if you get yourselves fooled out of that fortune you can thank yourselves for it. What is there to prevent some sharper from coming around and telling you that he is Haberstro? You didn't think of that, did you?"
"Yes, we thought of it," said Julian, with a smile. "Do you suppose we will take any man's word for that? He must prove that he is the man we want, or else we won't have anything to do with him."