TWENTY POUNDS REWARD.
It was the visit to Dan Webster which brought it all about; but for the fact that the handle of Charlie's bicycle got badly bent, so that only the village blacksmith could put it right, the most exciting incident which ever befell the boys would probably never have taken place.
It happened thus.
'Dan,' said Charlie, as he and his brother Sydney were waiting while the blacksmith finished a job he was at work on when they arrived, 'how would you like to earn twenty pounds reward?'
'I should like it amazingly well, sir,' was the reply; 'a third of that sum even would be a godsend to me.'
'How would you spend it?' asked Sydney, with an amused smile.
A serious look came into old Dan's face. 'I'd send my daughter away to the seaside for a change,' he said. 'The doctor tells me it would do her more good than all his medicines. But what's all this,' he asked, 'about twenty pounds reward? I suppose it's some joke of yours, young gentlemen?'
'It's no joke,' said Charlie; 'at least, Lady Winterton does not think so. She is on a visit to our house, you know; and this morning she discovered that she had lost a valuable necklace. Father was so angry that such a thing should have happened that he at once offered twenty pounds reward for the recovery of the necklace.'
Dan thought seriously awhile. Then he said, 'I wonder if the young chap who roused me up this morning at six o'clock, because his horse had cast a shoe, had anything to do with it?'