"Oh, ho," said Mr. Drake, regarding him keenly, but with humorous eyes, "you thought so too, did you? Of course you did! Well, I know it now, and I've been an old fool. I congratulate you, Jack, with all my heart. If Miss Marchfield is like her mother"—He broke off as if his thought had got the better of his speech. "If she is all that Mrs. Fairhew says she is, you have a treasure, my boy. Don't ever run off with her yacht."
"I never mean to repeat that performance with anybody," Jack declared stoutly, again shaking hands fervently. "You've always been awfully good to me, Uncle Randolph, and I've never done anything for you."
"Hum, perhaps not that you know of," the other replied, with a humorous lift of his eyebrows; "but we sometimes do good when we think we're doing harm. Read this."
He held out a long blue envelope, much stamped and written upon, and provided with both American and English postage-stamps. Jack knew it at a glance as the one he had taken from the messenger that foggy night at North Haven, had found in the pocket of his coat at Nice, and had after much cogitation remailed at Plymouth. In the upper left-hand corner was the notice to return to R. B. Tillington, if not delivered in five days, and the Boston address written in his own hand. He drew out the letter and read:—
My Dear Drake,—You and I have known the ins and outs of the market for so many years that we ought to appreciate both the danger of getting into an unsound stock and the foolishness of letting the real thing go by for the want of a little courage. I think you are not likely to have forgotten what Orrington said in the club last week about Orion Copper, or that I told you I meant to sift that thing to the very bottom. Well, I have been looking it up with a microscope ever since. I enclose three or four copies of letters,—this is all confidential, of course; you would know that without my saying so, but the thing's too important not to be particular about. I write to you because I've got to have somebody share the thing, and I think you can raise the money without putting anybody on the scent. Besides that, we have always got on well together, I believe in your luck, and I want somebody to stand with me in running the whole thing. There's nothing less than millions in it if we can get control at once. Sell anything,—I'm selling everything myself,—and get in on the ground floor of Orion. If I had known just where to hit you, I'd have got you to town to investigate for yourself; but I've wasted a small fortune already telegraphing to every damned port on the coast I could think of. You'll find wires waiting at every place you put into. Orion's bound to be the coming financial constellation. B. B., Mellington, Foster, and two or three others have blundered into it just by bull luck, but they haven't got enough stock to hurt us if you'll stand by me.
Yours for Orion,
R. B. T.
Jack read in steadily increasing consternation.
"Good heavens!" he said. "Did I make you lose the chance? Did you get the telegrams?"
"I got them, but they referred me to the letter, and I was too upset about the Merle to pay much attention. Then I went over to the island, and stayed there three or four days; so that by the time I did get a letter—a second one—the whole thing was over."
"Was that what broke Tillington?" Jack asked, feeling as if his escapade had destroyed half the financial world.
"It saved me from going with him," Mr. Drake returned, with a smile. "See here." He extended a lot of newspaper cuttings, and then drew them back. "Never mind, though," he went on. "There's no need of going into the particulars. The whole thing was a trap from beginning to end. If you made a fool of me, Jack, by running off with the Merle, it isn't a circumstance to the fool I'd have made of myself if I'd got that letter. If it hadn't been for that perfectly heartless and entirely inexcusable performance of yours, we'd both of us be beggars at this blessed moment. We came so near it that I can't read that sign downstairs, 'Beggars and Peddlers not Allowed,' without thinking how near I was to having it forbid me my own office."