Excerpt
CHAPTER I THE BOYS ON SHIPBOARD
"Phil, your father seems to be a good deal worried this morning. I hope it isn't on account of the way we cut up on this ship last evening."
"Not at all, Dave," returned Phil Lawrence. "I don't believe he noticed our monkey-shines. He is worried over the letter he received in the mail we got at our last stopping-place."
"No bad news I hope?" said Roger Morr, another one of the group of boys seated on the forward deck of a small coastwise steamer.
"Well, I think it is rather bad news," answered the son of the vessel's owner. "Poor dad stands to lose between twenty and thirty thousand dollars."
"Twenty or thirty thousand dollars!" exclaimed Dave Porter. "Why, how can that be, Phil?"
"Did he make a bad investment?" asked Ben Basswood, another youth of the group.
"You can hardly call it a bad investment, Ben," returned Phil. "Buying the land was all right enough in the first place. It's trying to get rid of it that's the sticker."
"You are talking in riddles, Phil," said Roger Morr. "Won't you explain?"
"Maybe Phil doesn't care to explain," broke in Dave Porter, quickly. "It may be his father's private business, you know."
"Oh, I don't think he'll object to my telling you the details," responded the shipowner's son. "It isn't very much of a secret where we live, or in East Haven."
"East Haven? Is that the place across the river from where you live?" queried Dave Porter.
"Yes. It's quite a bustling little town, too, although when my father and his older brother, Lester Lawrence, bought the tract of land there it didn't amount to much, and they got the ground for a song."
"I'd like to buy some land for a song," put in another youth of the group. "Then I might sell it and make a handsome profit. Say," he continued, his face brightening up, "that puts me in mind of a story. Once there was a man who wanted to——"
"Hold on, Shadow. It isn't your turn to tell stories now," interrupted Dave. "We want to hear what Phil has to say."
"This story wouldn't take but a minute," grumbled Maurice Hamilton, otherwise known as "Shadow." "It's a dandy one, too."
"All right, we'll listen to it later," returned Roger Morr. "Let us first hear what Phil has to tell."
"It isn't so much of a story," said the shipowner's son. "You see, years ago my dad and his older brother purchased a tract of land at East Haven, along the waterfront. For some time it was idle, and then it was leased to a lumber company, who used it for a number of years as a lumber yard. At that time East Haven had no railroad, but the L. A. & H. line came through that way and wanted to cross the river at East Haven, and wanted to locate their railroad repair shops along the waterfront there. They have made my father an offer for the land, and if that tract could be sold my folks would stand to make a profit of twenty to thirty thousand dollars."
"Well, why not sell the land then—unless you think it is worth more than the railroad company is willing to pay?" asked Dave.
"My father is willing enough to sell, and has been for some time; but he can't give the railroad a clear title, and consequently the deal is at a standstill."
"Oh, I see, Phil," said Roger Morr....