"Dear old Fred," said Bones, folding the cheque and sticking it in his pocket, "I'm goin' to own up--frankness is a vice with me--that I don't understand much about the shippin' business. But tell me, my jolly old merchant, why do fellers sell you ships in the mornin' an' buy 'em back in the afternoon?" "Business, Mr. Tibbetts," said Fred, smiling, "just big business." Bones sucked an inky finger. "Dinky business for me, dear old thing," he said. "I've got a thousand from you an' a thousand from the other Johnny who sold me two ships. Bless my life an' soul----" "The other fellow," said Fred faintly--"a fellow from the United Merchant Shippers?" "That was the dear lad," said Bones. "And has he cried off his bargain, too?" "Positively!" said Bones. "A very, very nice, fellow. He told me I could call him Joe--jolly old Joe!" "Jolly old Joe!" repeated Fred mechanically, as he left the office, and all the way home he was saying "Jolly old Joe!" CHAPTER II HIDDEN TREASURE Mrs. Staleyborn's first husband was a dreamy Fellow of a Learned University. Her second husband had begun life at the bottom of the ladder as a three-card trickster, and by strict attention to business and the exercise of his natural genius, had attained to the proprietorship of a bucket-shop. When Mrs. Staleyborn was Miss Clara Smith, she had been housekeeper to Professor Whitland, a biologist who discovered her indispensability, and was only vaguely aware of the social gulf which yawned between the youngest son of the late Lord Bortledyne and the only daughter of Albert Edward Smith, mechanic. To the Professor she was Miss _H. Sapiens_--an agreeable, featherless plantigrade biped of the genus _Homo_. She was also thoroughly domesticated and cooked like an angel, a nice woman who apparently never knew that her husband had a Christian name, for she called him "Mr. Whitland" to the day of his death. The strain and embarrassment of the new relationship with her master were intensified by the arrival of a daughter, and doubled when that daughter came to a knowledgeable age. Marguerite Whitland had the inherent culture of her father and the grace and delicate beauty which had ever distinguished the women of the house of Bortledyne. When the Professor died, Mrs. Whitland mourned him in all sincerity. She was also relieved. One-half of the burden which lay upon her had been lifted; the second half was wrestling with the binomial theorem at Cheltenham College.