“Well, you’d better come up to the house. Sister is starting for Maine to visit those friends this afternoon. She wants to say good-bye to you.”
“I will, my boy, and, Freeman, while I think of it, we may as well pack up and go, too. The climate of Hampton does not agree with me.”
* * * * * * * *
Well, the tale is told. That little trip of Stonington Hunt’s extended into weeks, and the weeks into months, and he never came back. Finally his house was sold and the place knew him no more. In the meantime, affairs at Hampton had been progressing much in the usual way. Paul, in due course, received his other five thousand dollars, which was deposited in the bank, the institution having been completely remodeled in the course of repairing the damage wrought by the blowing up of the big safe. And of the part the Motor-Scooter played in the conquest of the Pole, the papers have told.
Nothing more was ever heard of Dugan or the Japanese, although it was said some time ago in a Tokio dispatch that an American named Dugan had been shot in a quarrel with one of the Mikado’s officers. As for Hank Handcraft, he recovered from his lingering illness and was discharged from the hospital, a wreck of the man he had been. On leaving the place he declared his intention of going to see some relatives in England and of spending the remainder of his days there, but whether he did so, or from whom he procured the funds for the trip, the present writer is not informed.
Perhaps some of my readers would like to know what became of Sim. Well, Sim has a job doing odd tasks for Cap. Hudgins out on Topsail Island. Previous to undertaking these duties for the good-hearted captain Sim had another job, but he did not hold it long.
His employer, a well-to-do man in the town, met Sim the first morning he came to work and thereafter did not see him for two whole days. Finally Sim was discovered asleep in the barn on a soft truss of hay.
“Say, have you been sleeping ever since I hired you?” asked Sim’s new employer indignantly.
“I do not come, sir, of a hard-working race,” rejoined Sim, still with his old habit strong upon him; “your ‘ad’ said, ‘Boy wanted to sleep on the place.’”
One afternoon in early June there were unwonted doings in Hampton. The annual Firemen’s Carnival was on, with a parade of Boy Scouts as a special feature. Big crowds lined the streets on foot, in buggies and in autos to see the big parade pass under the flaunting banners and decorations.