"Oh, yes, all the fellows know of it," answered Percy; "they were all there when I opened that odd-looking parcel. I thought it was a hoax—wrapped up in paper after paper that way—and I was not going to open the hair-pin box when it came out at last; but Raymond Stewart cut the string and there was the hundred-dollar note. A nice thing it would have been if I had tossed it in the fire, as I had a mind to do half-a-dozen times while I was unrolling those papers. Oh, yes; they all saw it. Flagg says I am the luckiest fellow he knows."
"Yes," thought Seabrooke, "and he'll persuade you to make way with it before it goes into your sister's hands, if I know him aright. I say, Percy," aloud, "why don't you put that money into Mr. Merton's hands till you are going home?"
"Why?" asked Percy, rather indignantly. "You don't suppose any one is going to steal it, do you?"
"Of course not," answered Seabrooke, who really had no such thought, and only feared that Percy himself might be tempted to do something foolish—in his situation something almost dishonorable Seabrooke thought it would be. It was due to Percy's sister that this sum should be employed to repay her; it would be an absolute wrong to employ it for anything else. "Only," he added, with a little hesitation, "I thought you might find it a sort of a safeguard to have it in the hands of some one else."
"A safeguard against myself, eh?" said Percy, laughing good-naturedly, and not at all offended, as Seabrooke feared he might be. "All right, if you are unhappy about it take care of it yourself."
And drawing his purse from his pocket he opened it, took from it the hundred dollar note, and thrust the latter into Seabrooke's hand.
"I suppose it's wisest," he said; "but I know I shouldn't spend it. However, if it gives you any satisfaction it is as well in your pocket as mine."
"It will not lodge in my pocket," said Seabrooke; "how can you carry such a sum of money in such an insecure place, Neville? Playing rough-and-tumble games, too, when any minute it is likely to fall out of your pocket. I shall lock it up, I can tell you; and what if you tell me not to return it to you till we are breaking up?"
"All right," said Percy again. "I request you not to give it back to me until the day we leave."
"I promise," said Seabrooke. "Remember now; I shall keep my word and take you at yours, and will not return this money to you until Thursday morning of next week."