Sam saw that it was no use to argue further with his father, and left the shop with no very pleasant expression on his countenance.

“I’ll have to see if I can’t borrow it somewhere,” he mused.  “If only I was on better terms with Rob Blake, I could get it from him, I guess.  His father is a banker and he must have plenty.  I wonder—­I wonder if Mr. Blake himself wouldn’t lend it to me.  I could give him a note for it, and in three months’ time I’d be sure to be able to take it up.”

With this end in view, the lad started for the Hampton Bank.  It required some courage for a youth of his disposition to make up his mind to beard the lion in his den—­or, in other words, to approach Mr. Blake in his office.  For Sam, while bold enough when his two hulking cronies were about, had no real backbone of his own.

After making two or three turns in front of the bank, he finally screwed his courage to the sticking point, and timidly asked an attendant if he could see the banker.

“I think so.  I’ll see,” was the reply.

In a few seconds the man reappeared, and said that Mr. Blake could spare a few minutes.  Hat in hand, Sam entered the ground-glass door which bore on it in imposing gilt letters the word “President.”

The interview was brief, and to Sam most unsatisfactory.  The banker pointed out to him that he was a minor, and as such that his note would be no good; and also that, without the permission of his father, he would not think of lending the youth such a sum.  Much crestfallen, Sam shuffled his way out toward the main door of the bank, when suddenly a voice he recognized caused him to look up.

“A hundred and twenty-five dollars.  That’s right, all shipshape and above board!”

It was the old captain of Topsail Island, counting over in his gnarled paw one hundred and twenty-five dollars in crisp bills which he had just received from the paying teller.

“You must be going to be married, captain,” Sam heard the teller remark jocularly.

“Not yet a while,” the captain laughed back.  “That ther motor uv mine that I left ter be fixed up is goin’ ter cost me fifty dollars, and the other seventy-five I’m calculating ter keep on hand in my safe fer a while.  I’m kind uv figgerin’ on gettin’ a new dinghy—­my old one is just plum full uv holes.  I rowed over frum the island this mornin’, and I declar’ ter goodness, once or twice I thought I’d swamp.”

Sam slipped out of the bank without speaking to the captain, whom, indeed, since the episode of the melon patch, he had no great desire to encounter.

As he made his way toward his home in no very amiable mood, he was hailed from the opposite side of the street by Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender.

“Any news of the boat?” demanded Jack, as he and Bill crossed over and slapped their crony on the back with great assumed heartiness.

“Yes, and mighty bad news, too, in one way.  She’s safe enough.  The Dolphin—­that fishing boat—­found her and towed her in.  But—­here’s the tough part of it—­it’s going to cost fifty dollars for salvage to get her from the Dolphin’s captain, the old shark!”