His father was the only relative whom he knew, and his death, therefore, left the boy peculiarly, alone in the world. Everything reminded him of his dead father. But he did not allow himself to dwell upon thoughts that would depress his spirits and unfit him for the work that lay before him.
He opened his father’s desk and began to examine his papers. There was no will, for there was nothing to leave, but in one compartment of the desk was a thick wallet, which he opened.
In it, among some receipted bills, was an envelope, on which was written, in his father’s well-known hand:
“The contents of this envelope are probably of no value, but it will be as well to preserve the certificate of stock. There is a bare possibility that it may some day be worth a trifle.”
Philip opened the envelope and found a certificate for a hundred shares of the Excelsior Gold Mine, which appeared to be located in California. He had once heard his father speak of it in much the same terms as above.
“I may as well keep it,” reflected Philip. “It will probably amount to nothing, but there won’t be much trouble in carrying around the envelope.” He also found a note of hand for a thousand dollars, signed by Thomas Graham.
Attached to it was a slip of paper, on which he read, also in his father’s writing:
“This note represents a sum of money lent to Thomas Graham, when I was moderately prosperous. It is now outlawed, and payment could not be enforced, even if Graham were alive and possessed the ability to pay. Five years since, he left this part of the country for some foreign country, and is probably dead, and I have heard nothing from him in all that time. It will do no harm, and probably no good, to keep his note.”
“I will keep it,” decided Philip. “It seems that this and the mining shares are all that father had to leave me. They will probably never yield me a cent, but I will keep them in remembrance of him.”
Phillip found his father’s watch. It was an old-fashioned gold watch, but of no great value even when new. Now, after twenty years’ use, it would command a very small price at the coming sale.