“Mind? Bless me, child, it’s yours for the finding, and welcome!”
But Orkney shook his head. “No; it belongs to you,” he said. “You’ll know what to do with it permanently. We shouldn’t. A week or two will be quite enough for our purposes.”
Mrs. Grant looked perplexed. “Well, maybe you understand what you’re about. I don’t, but that’s neither here nor there. And if it suits you, surely it suits me, too.”
“Thank you!” said Orkney very gravely.
“Yes, thank you!” echoed the Safety First Club with a fervent heartiness Mrs. Grant perceived but quite failed to comprehend.
CHAPTER XXI
POKE OUT OF BONDAGE
The result of the historical essay competition was a foregone conclusion. Under the conditions, by which facts counted for more than form of expression, the production of the Safety First Club, entered in Poke’s name, took the hundred dollar prize, with never a doubt in the minds of the judges. Tattered and torn as was the diary of Dominie Pike, it yet threw so much light upon debated questions of early town history, and added so much information to the local historians’ store of knowledge, that the award was made with very little delay.
Poke, it must be said, rebelled at the last, but the club promptly overruled his objections. Step argued long and vigorously with his chum.
“You’ve got to have money, and here is money. Don’t be an idiot! What do you want to do? Turn us down, and be sued or—or something? Want your folks to know all about the mess, eh? Ugh! Thought you didn’t. And here you’ve been growling about luck being against you, and when it’s for you, you’re all for jumping the fence to get away from it. Say, you make me tired!”
This was Step’s conclusion, and along with the rest of his argument served to shake Poke somewhat, and to send him to Sam, as a sort of court of appeal. But Sam quite agreed with Step.