Stumpy was an excited young man. He had come into the parlor on the invitation of Leopold, and had very modestly coiled himself away in the most obscure corner of the room. He was very much interested in the reading of Harvey Barth's diary, and especially in regard to the mysterious passenger. When Leopold read the name of "Joel Wormbury," he could no longer contain himself. He leaped from his corner, and shouted as though he had been hailing the Rosabel half a mile off.
"My father!" repeated he; and all eyes were fixed upon him.
Stumpy was excited, not so much, we must do him the justice to say, because there was money involved in the fact, as because the name and memory of his father were dear to him.
"That man was Stumpy's father as true as the world!" said Mr. Bennington.
"It is a very remarkable affair," added Mr. Hamilton. "Such things don't often happen."
"But I haven't the slightest doubt that this Wallbridge was Joel Wormbury," replied the landlord.
"I'm sure of it," exclaimed Stumpy. "I know all about that Bible; I've seen it twenty times; and mother always used to put it into father's chest when he was going away fishing."
"I don't know about that, Stumpy," interposed Mr. Bennington, with a smile of incredulity; "I'm afraid it won't hold water."
"What's the reason it won't?" demanded Stumpy, who was entirely satisfied in regard to the identity of the sacred volume. "I used to carry it to Sunday school sometimes; and I've seen my father's name written in forty places in it, wherever there was a page or part of a page not printed on, just as Harvey Barth says in his diary. I don't believe there is any mistake about that."
"But the writer of this journal appears to have been considerably exercised about the passenger's change of name," said Mr. Hamilton, before the landlord had an opportunity to explain why he doubted the truth of the statement in regard to the Bible. "Harvey Barth hoped Mr. Wallbridge had not done anything wrong."