“My most pressing business is to find the treasure!” Croyden laughed.
“Good! then we’re on the job until it’s found—if it takes a year or longer.” And when Croyden looked his surprise: “I’ve nothing to do, old chap, and one doesn’t have the opportunity to go treasure hunting more than once in a lifetime. Picture our satisfaction when we hear the pick strike the iron box, and see the lid turned back, and the jewels coruscating before us.”
“But what if there isn’t any coruscating—that’s a good word, old man—nor any iron box?”
“Don’t be so pessimistic—think we’re going to find it, it will help a lot.”
“How about if we don’t find it?”
“Then, at least, we’ll have had a good time in hunting, and have done our best to succeed.”
“It’s a new thing to hear old cynical Macloud preaching optimism!” laughed Croyden—“our last talk, in Northumberland, wasn’t particularly in that line, you’ll remember.”
“Our talk in Northumberland had to do with 118 other people and conditions. This is an adventure, and has to do solely with ourselves. Some difference, my dear Croyden, some difference! What do you say to an early breakfast to-morrow, and then a walk over to the Point. It’s something like your Eastern Shore to get to, however,—just across the river by water, but three miles around by the Severn bridge. We can have the whole day for prospecting.”
“I’m under your orders,” said Croyden. “You’re in charge of this expedition.”
They had been passing numerous naval officers in uniform, some well set-up, some slouchy.