Jerry shook Frank, in his earnestness, saying:
"It isn't fair, and you know it! We're chums, and we deserve to be taken into your confidence."
"Right you are; and now sit down and listen to me. I'm not going to read this letter out, but you can look it over later, as you please. My father says he was just about to come down to Cedar Keys himself, or send a trusted clerk, for the business is very important, you see."
"And that was why he smiled when you told him where we meant to bring up?"
"Yes, Bluff, that was the reason. Now you know he is a banker and a capitalist. In times gone by he used to be in Wall Street, so he had connection with many men who were investors. One friend of his, named Joseph Sprague Abercrombie, who was an engineer, entrusted some money to him to invest in certain stocks. By an unfortunate turn of the market those stocks became seemingly valueless. They have lain in his safe for ten years."
"Say! it's growing exciting! I can see what's coming!" cried Bluff.
"Meanwhile, my father had lost all track of his once boyhood friend Joe. Then, by a strange freak of fate, the corporation that had issued those stocks suddenly became alive. Everything they owned began to prosper. Their mines turned out rich investments, their timber lands found a big market. The apparently worthless stock, taken from the safe and put on the market at its highest point, brought in a fortune for Joseph Abercrombie or his heirs!"
"Hurrah!" shouted Will, embracing little Joe in the exuberance of his joy.
"Talk to me about magic, will you! This thing has the Arabian Nights beaten all to a frazzle, and that's what I think!" laughed Jerry, pumping the hand of Joe vigorously.
"My father tried hard to locate his old friend. By degrees he found that he had gone South, soon after sinking his little savings in what seemed to have been worthless stock. Then he learned that he had lost his life on the road, and that his family with but scant means, had moved to Cedar Keys, where they were still living, according to what information he could secure."