“I have here,” said Mr. Hyatt, when they had seated themselves and greetings had been exchanged and the weather duly and thoroughly disposed of, “a telegram from Barrows and Leland, of Norfolk, Virginia, agents for the owners of the schooner Catspaw.  In it they make an offer of settlement of your claim, subject, of course, to the facts and conditions being as stated in my telegram to them.”

He paused impressively and the boys shuffled their feet in silent expectancy.

“Hm.  Now I’m not going to advise you to accept their offer and I’m not going to advise you not to,” he rumbled.  “Only, I do say this, gentlemen.  If you take your case to the Admiralty Court it will cost you a good deal of money and you won’t get a final judgment for a long time.  Of course, you might, in the end, get a better figure.  I’d almost be willing to guarantee that you would.  But you want to remember that the costs of a trial aren’t small and that they might eat a big hole in the difference between the present offer and the court’s award.”

“What—­what do they offer us?” asked Steve as the lawyer paused to clear his throat.

“There’s no doubt that the value of the Catspaw and her cargo is a sight more than these fellows offer us,” resumed Mr. Hyatt, quite as though he had not heard the question.  “But there’s the old adage about a bird on toast being worth more than a bird on the telegraph wire.”  He chuckled deeply.  “And, of course, no owner ever thinks of paying the full value of salvaged property.  Nor does the court expect him to.  Something like an equable division is what they try to award.”

“Yes, sir,” murmured Steve nervously.  “Yes, sir.  Would you mind—­”

“You said something yesterday about a thousand dollars, and I told you you might expect that much, didn’t I?”

Steve nodded silently.

“Well—­” The lawyer took up a sheet of creased yellow paper from the desk and ran his eyes along the message thereon.  “Well, I’ve got to tell you they don’t offer you a thousand, boys.”

“Oh!” murmured Steve.

“Don’t they?” gasped Joe weakly.

“Then what—­” began Wink dejectedly.

“They offer you—­” Mr. Hyatt leaned forward in the protesting chair and held the telegram toward Steve—­“they offer you four thousand, seven hundred and sixty-one dollars, young gentlemen.”

* * * * *

Isn’t this a good place to end our story?  I might tell how they wired the good news to Neil, and how they set forth that afternoon for New York, and how, after a jolly but uneventful trip, the two boats parted company off Bay Shore, and how the Adventurer, having done her best to deserve the name she bore, at last sidled up to a slip in the yacht basin and discharged her crew.  And I might depict the awed delight with which, two days later, Steve, Joe and Phil gazed upon a narrow strip of green paper bearing the wonderful legend “Four Thousand Seven Hundred Sixty-one Dollars.”  But we set out in search of adventures, and we have reached the last of them, and so the chronicle should end.  And since it began with a remark from Perry let us end it so.  Perry’s closing remark was made from the platform of the train for Philadelphia.