“All O!”
The boys looked at the characters mysteriously.
“Is that the secret?” asked Frank.
“Yes, and I myself am going to keep it for the club.”
Master Lewis had a private talk with George Howe and Leander Towle immediately on their return.
“I wish you to go,” he said; “and I think a most profitable tour can be made in the way you propose for $100. You can at least visit Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, London, and Paris, and spend three days each in the three great capital cities. The information you would thus gain would be of great value to you. I thus estimate the probable expense to each:—
| Steerage passage to go and return | $50.00 |
| Glasgow to Edinburgh, 2s. 6d., or | 60 |
| Edinburgh to London, and London to Paris by way of Dieppe, about £3, or | 14.40 |
| Shilling lodgings and meals for fourteen days | 14.00 |
| Miscellaneous expenses | 11.00 |
| $90.00 |
“I will do my best to make your expenses as light as possible. I am told that one can live comfortably on four shillings a day in Scotland and England, and for five francs a day in Paris. You will not be able to enjoy our walks in historic places outside of the great cities, and you will probably be obliged to return before the rest of the party; but the very restraint you will have to use will be a good experience for you. As Franklin once said, ‘A good kick out of doors is worth all the rich uncles in the world.’ It is good for one to bear the yoke in his youth. You see what I mean,—self-reliance, independence! I am not altogether sorry that you will be compelled to make the journey in this way.”
The boys thanked their teacher.
When they had left him, George Howe said decidedly,—