"Let me see it, then?" asked Max.
"Oh! c-c-come now, Max, you're j-just trying to string me. S-sure that ugly little crooked thing could never be a valuable pearl?" remonstrated Toby.
"Perhaps not, Toby, but all the same I'd like to take a look at it," answered Max.
"Fork over, Toby," commanded Bandy-legs, with almost too great a vein of authority in his voice.
The stutterer looked halfway belligerent; then, as if thinking better of his first desire for a wordy conflict, he passed the tiny object across the table to Max.
Both he and Owen examined it by the aid of a strong magnifying glass.
"It's a pearl, all right," announced Max, finally.
"Oh! joy! joy!" exclaimed Toby, ready to leap to his feet and begin a jig.
"But without any particular commercial value," Owen said, once again freezing the enthusiasm of the stammering, excited Toby.
"All the same, it ought to encourage us to begin work dredging the Big Sunflower," remarked Steve, as he started in to examine the first find of the expedition.