"Like those?" he inquired, with interest.
"Exactly like them," replied Laud, astonished to find that each was the counterpart of the one he had paid Donald for the Juno, and had the "white cross of Denmark" upon it.
"Do you know how those bills happened to be in that condition, Mr. Cavendish?" chuckled the captain.
"Of course I do not, sir."
"I'll tell you, my gay buffer. I have got a weak, soft place somewhere in my gizzard; I don't know where; if I did, I'd cut it out. About three months ago, just after I brought from Portland one hundred of these new fifty-dollar bills, there was a great cry here for money for some missionary concern. I read something in the newspaper, at this time, about what some of the missionaries had done for a lot of sailors who had been cast away on the South Sea Islands. I thought more of the psalm-singers than ever before, and I was tempted to do something for them. Well, I actually wrote to some parson here who was howling for money, and stuck four of those bills between the leaves. I think it is very likely I should have sent them to the parson, if I hadn't been called out of the room. I threw the note, with the bills in it, on the table, and went out to see a pair of horses a jockey had driven into the yard for me to look at. When I came back and glanced at the note, I thought what a fool I had been, to think of giving money to those canting psalm-singers. I was mad with myself for my folly, and I tore the note into four pieces before I thought that the bills were in it. But Mrs. Sykes mended them as you see. Go on with your yarn, my buffer."
"That bill I paid to Don John for the Juno," continued Laud. "He paid it to Mr. Leach, the sail-maker, who paid it to Captain Patterdale, and he says it was one of the bills in the tin chest when it was stolen. Don John says he had it from me."
"Precisely so; and that is what makes it unpleasant to be suspected of a crime," laughed Captain Shivernock. "But you don't state where you got the bill, Mr. Cavendish. Perhaps you don't wish to tell."
"I shall tell the whole story with the greatest pleasure," added Laud. "I was sailing one day down by Haddock Ledge, when I saw a man tumble overboard from a boat moored where he had been fishing. He was staving drunk, and went forward, as I thought, to get up his anchor. The boat rolled in the sea, and over he went. I got him out. The cold water sobered him in a measure, and he was very grateful to me. He went to his coat, which he did not wear when he fell, and took from his pocket a roll of bills. He counted off ten fifties, and gave them to me. Feeling sure that I had saved his life, I did not think five hundred dollars was any too much to pay for it, and I took the money. I don't think he would have given me so much if he hadn't been drunk. I asked him who he was, but he would not tell me, saying he didn't want his friends in Boston to know he had been over the bay, and in the bay; but he said he had been staying in Belfast a couple of days."
"Good story!" laughed the wicked nabob.
"Every word of it is as true as preaching," protested Laud.