“Maybe. Sometimes it seems to me as if when you want a thing you’ve just got to set your mind on it and—and steer right straight for it, and you’ll get it. I don’t suppose it always happens like that, but pretty often it does. You’ve got to sort of concentrate, Arn; forget other things and pick up your marks and—and keep your course mighty steady.” Toby drew up his empty hook and began reeling the line. “Anyway, I’m going to try it.”
For the next several days Toby had queer periods of thoughtfulness, going off into trances without warning and quite alarming Arnold, who feared, or professed to fear, that his chum’s mind was giving way. “It’s having all that money to think about,” declared Arnold. “If you’d only spend it for something it wouldn’t worry you.”
“As long as that bank doesn’t bust,” answered the other, “I’m not troubling about the money. Your father said it was a very safe bank, didn’t he?”
“Safe as any of them,” teased Arnold, “but, of course, you never can tell when the cashier or—or some one will take it into his head to start off to Canada!”
“Huh! They fetch ’em back now,” said Toby. “That doesn’t scare me. Dad says I might have put it in the postoffice, though.”
“Buy stamps with it?” asked Arnold in a puzzled voice.
“No, put it in the Postal Savings Bank. The government looks after it for you then, and I guess the government would be pretty safe, eh?”
“So’s that bank you’ve got it in. If it wasn’t safe do you suppose father would keep money in it?”
“N-no, I guess not. I wouldn’t want to lose that hundred and fifty though. I—I’ve got a use for that!”
“Have you asked your father about Yardley yet?”