And with this the hard-featured old boat builder—who had made his money literally by the sweat of his brow—turned once more to his task of figuring out the blue prints of a racing sloop.
Sam saw that it was no use to argue further with his father, and left the shop with no very pleasant expression on his countenance.
"I'll have to see if I can't borrow it somewhere," he mused. "If only I was on better terms with Rob Blake, I could get it from him, I guess. His father is a banker and he must have plenty. I wonder—I wonder if Mr. Blake himself wouldn't lend it to me. I could give him a note for it, and in three months' time I'd be sure to be able to take it up."
With this end in view, the lad started for the Hampton Bank. It required some courage for a youth of his disposition to make up his mind to beard the lion in his den—or, in other words, to approach Mr. Blake in his office. For Sam, while bold enough when his two hulking cronies were about, had no real backbone of his own.
After making two or three turns in front of the bank, he finally screwed his courage to the sticking point, and timidly asked an attendant if he could see the banker.
"I think so. I'll see," was the reply.
In a few seconds the man reappeared, and said that Mr. Blake could spare a few minutes. Hat in hand, Sam entered the ground-glass door which bore on it in imposing gilt letters the word "President."
The interview was brief, and to Sam most unsatisfactory. The banker pointed out to him that he was a minor, and as such that his note would be no good; and also that, without the permission of his father, he would not think of lending the youth such a sum. Much crestfallen, Sam shuffled his way out toward the main door of the bank, when suddenly a voice he recognized caused him to look up.
"A hundred and twenty-five dollars. That's right, all shipshape and above board!"
It was the old captain of Topsail Island, counting over in his gnarled paw one hundred and twenty-five dollars in crisp bills which he had just received from the paying teller.