"Ask Mr. Armstrong to come here a moment," he said.
When the expert appeared, the official handed the stones to him without a word.
"They are diamonds of exceptionally fine quality," said Mr. Armstrong, after a moment's examination.
"We shall have to condemn the property, Mr. Sinclair," said the Treasury official, "as there can be no doubt that an attempt was being made to smuggle them into the country. In fact, we had already discovered that homing-pigeons were being used in this way, the birds being carried to Europe, then brought back and liberated, with their burden of diamonds, before reaching Quarantine. But how on earth your boy's homer became pressed into this service," continued the official, "I can't conceive. He deserves a medal, at any rate," he went on, "for flying straight to his own loft with the diamonds."
The Treasury official picked up the bits of oil-silk.
"I feel quite hopeful," he said, "that with this clew we may be able to break up this particular attempt to rob Uncle Sam of his just dues."
Ned was a very interested listener to the story his father had to tell that night, and an exceedingly interested reader, a little later on, of a letter that came from the national Treasury Department, enclosing a handsome sum of money as his share of the value of the diamonds, since Ned—or Ned's pigeon—stood in the place of the "informer," who is given a generous share of the value that is thus turned in to the government through his efforts.
The money made Ned's eyes sparkle. "Here's a pony, a dog-cart, and a russet-leather harness," he shouted; and then, with a fine realization of the eternal fitness of things, he rushed off to give Fleetwing an extra dish of hemp seed.