“Your name is Kenneth, you said?” The official was smiling. “Well, I am going to name my youngest Kenneth, so that he will always come out on top—congratulate you.”
He put out his hand, and Kenneth, half dazed with his unexpected good fortune, grasped it with both his. In his gratitude he felt the uselessness of words; and though he tried on all the different ones he could think of that would apply to the situation, not one of them seemed adequate.
“How did it happen?” his curiosity made him ask at last.
“Oh, I saw a fellow in a dark corner looking over something,” the marshal explained, “and I did not just like his looks; he must have been a green hand to be looking at his graft in the open like that; so I went up to him and asked him if he had found something. The fellow looked up, saw my uniform, and got a case of cold feet right away. ‘Yes,’ he said, half scared, ‘I found this by the money order window.’ All the same, he still held onto the wad—he hated to give it up—so I remarked, quiet like, ‘I guess you found it in somebody’s pocket.’ Well, I got the roll quick enough then, and put it in the safe; but I never expected the owner would run it to earth as quickly as you did.”
Kenneth thanked him again, and gave him a bill from the roll which he was holding.
The marshal had to finally cut off his torrent of thanks with a short, “Young man, this office closed an hour ago.”
Ransom from the door shouted an invitation to visit the yacht, and then went back to the grocery man and made him do up the things he had ordered before with elaborate care; he paid his three dollars and forty-eight cents and went off, the most thankful boy in town.
CHAPTER V
A PERILOUS SITUATION
Though Kenneth was elated enough when he left the centre of the city and started for the river front, his heart sank within him when he caught sight of the water. The swift current was carrying great pieces of ice, which gleamed white against the dark stream. The ice cakes were close together, and as the boy thought of the scant three-eighths of an inch thickness of “His Nibs’s” sides, He despaired of reaching the yacht anchored on the other shore.