“Do you know,” said he, “now that it’s all over, I don’t want that money at all; I mean I wouldn’t care so much about it even if it didn’t belong to anybody. It was the fun of wanting to find it, and of getting it. Adventure is better than money, when it comes to a showdown. Because it’s a blamed sight more scarce, I suppose.”
“Money does not always bring happiness, Tom,” said Brent, with a whimsical look on his funny face.
“There you go, joking again,” said Tom.
“What are we going to do with the box when we go fishing?” Brent said. “It would be a shame to take the money out of the box, it wouldn’t look like treasure any more, it would just look like plain, common, everyday money.”
“Plain, common, everyday money is right,” said Tom. “What do you say we have a game of checkers? Somehow, I’ve turned against pinochle since to-night.”
“I always said there was no romance to pinochle, Tommy,” said Brent. “Checkers is full of medieval tradition. I think the pirates used to play checkers—or was it Mah-Jong? Anyway, it wasn’t pinochle. All right, I’ll beat you a game before we turn in. There goes the night worker.”
“I kind of like to hear that owl screeching,” said Tom.
| [1] | By “the Philistine” he meant my humble self. |