“Hm! p’r’aps I guessed wrong,” commented Billy. “But there’s something up. That’s sure. I’ll just jump the squire on the price, anyway. I may catch him.”
With which resolve, Billy visited the squire the following day, offered him the land at an advance of three hundred dollars, and, much to his own surprise, got it.
“It’s a fearful price, fifteen hundred dollars for that land,” exclaimed the squire, after he had tried in vain to beat down the figure. “I’ll never get a cent out of it; but I’m just fool enough to do it.”
“P’r’aps you be,” thought Billy.
“I don’t like to part with that island, squire,” he said. “If you want it, you’d better draw up the papers, right away to-day, and we’ll go over to Mayville and have everything filed straight and regular. Else I might get sorry and back out.”
“All right,” said Squire Brackett.
“We can’t do it any too soon to suit me,” he thought.
So Uncle Billy and Squire Brackett went to Mayville, and the squire generously paid the fares.
“Guess I can stand it, at a thousand dollars profit,” said the squire to himself.
Henry Burns and Jack Harvey, arising on the morning following their adventure with Mr. Carleton, proceeded at once to restore the yacht to its former condition, by purchasing at Rob Dakin’s a strong lock for the cabin. It was heavier and clumsier than the one that had been broken, but, as Henry Burns remarked, it was good enough for fishermen.