“And how much, Jack?”

“Guess.”

“Will there be enough to pay Isaac’s ten thousand?”

“More!” Jack was nearly bursting, but he still held in.

“Twenty thousand?” This came timidly, fearing that it was too much, and yet hoping that it might be true.

“More!” The strain on Jack was getting dangerous.

“Twenty-five thousand?” Peter’s voice now showed that he was convinced that this sum was too small.

“More!  Go on, Uncle Peter!  Go on!”

“Thirty-five thousand, Jack?” It was getting hot; certainly this was the limit.  Was there ever such luck?

“Yes!—­and five thousand more!  Forty thousand dollars and one-fifth interest in the output!  Just think what Ruth will say.  I’ve just sent her a telegram.  Oh!—­what a home-coming!”

And then, with Peter drawn up beside him, his face radiant and his eyes sparkling with joy, he poured out the story of the morning.  How he had begun by telling Mr. Guthrie of his own and Mr. MacFarlane’s opinion of the property, as he did not want to sell anything he himself considered worthless.  How he had told him frankly what Peter had said of his—­Mr. Guthrie’s—­fairness and honesty; how he was at work for his prospective father-in-law, the distinguished engineer of whom Mr. Guthrie had no doubt heard—­at which the gentleman nodded.  How this property had been given him by his father, and was all he had in the world except what he could earn; how he already owed ten thousand dollars and had pledged the property as part payment, and how, in view of these facts, he would take any sum over ten thousand dollars that Mr. Guthrie would give him, provided Mr. Guthrie thought it was worth that much.

“But I am buying, not selling, your land, young man,” the banker had said.  “I know it, sir, and I am willing to take your own figures,” Jack replied—­at which Mr. Guthrie had laughed in a kindly way, and had then called in Mr. Ballantree and another man how the three had then talked in a corner, and how he had heard Mr. Guthrie say, “No, that is not fair—­add another five thousand and increase the interest to one-fifth”; whereupon the two men went out and came back later with a letter in duplicate, one of which Mr. Guthrie had signed, and the other which he, Jack, signed—­and here was Mr., Guthrie’s letter to prove it.  With this Jack took out the document and laid it before Peter’s delighted eyes; adding that the deeds and Isaac’s release were to be signed in the morning, and that Mr. Guthrie had sent a special message by him to the effect that he very much wished Mr. Grayson would also be present when the final transfers would be signed and the money paid.

Whereupon the Scribe again maintains—­and he is rubbing his hands with the joy of it all as he does it—­that there was more sunshine than clouds in this particular Unexpected, and that if all the boys in the world were as frank and sincere as young Jack Breen, and all the grown-ups as honest as old Robert Guthrie, the real banker, the jails would be empty and the millennium knocking at our doors.