It was fun to hunt them with this amusing companion. Fitzhugh collected three more at three other houses, paying five dollars for each. At the third house the farmer and his wife and children were just sitting down to dinner and the strangers were invited to join them. They had an excellent meal, during which the man in green did almost all the talking, and when they returned to the car and started on again he rubbed his hands gleefully and said, “Mr. Benjamin Sully, it isn’t so hard to find adventures if you look for them, is it?”
“Well,” Ben answered, “this is all very well; but I set out this morning to see Mr. Hastings and learn if he’d lost a snuff-box.”
“That’s so, you did. Joseph Hastings—a silver snuff-box—found on Cotterell’s Island. What makes you think that the snuff-box you found there belonged to Joseph Hastings?”
Ben considered how much to tell this Roderick Fitzhugh, and finally decided to supply him with more facts. “The snuff-box was bought by Mr. Hastings at a shop in Barmouth, and I found it yesterday in a chest hidden in a crevice in the rocks on the island. Why did he put it there?”
The man in green beamed with delight. “In a treasure chest? Why, that’s splendid!” He looked at Ben with new approval in his eyes. “So you’re mixed up in a real adventure, are you? Treasure hidden in the rocks—on an island! Why, that’s magnificent! No wonder you didn’t get excited over my tame hooked-rugs. Turn the car about, and drive back to the Gables. We must investigate this.”
Half-an-hour later the little car turned in between the gate-posts at the Gables. It clattered up the drive to the front of the house. On the wide porch were at least a dozen people, men and women; and when they saw the occupants of the car they gave a shout of welcome.
“Hello, here’s the lad in green!”
“We thought you’d been kidnapped!”
“Where’d you find the jitney?”
“Hope you’ve had some lunch!”