Fifty thousand dollars, however, was a big enough fortune to appeal to the cupidity of old Delancey Gale and his son. They had learned about his legacy from the man with the flushed face, who was a clerk in the office of the lawyer who had drawn up Leggett’s will, and who had thus had a chance to see that document. Happening to be in Oldham on some business for his employer, this man had called on his friend Gale, whom he had known when the latter was a reporter on the New York _Daily News_, and had told him of Melba’s prospective good fortune. Gale had been greatly interested, and had urged him not to talk about the will to his Cousin Melba, nor to anybody else in Oldham. Gale had confided to him that he and Melba were secretly engaged--so the garrulous law clerk informed the Camera Chap--and had explained with seeming ingenuousness that if the girl learned that she was an heiress to fifty thousand dollars she might get an idea into her head that he--Gale--was not good enough for her. “Modest fellow, our friend Gale, isn’t he?” remarked the law clerk to Hawley, at this point in the narrative. “Oh, very!” the Camera Chap agreed dryly. “Just one more question, old man: Is Mr. Leggett in good health?” The law clerk grinned. “You bet he is! He’s as hard as nails, and, although he’s past seventy, is as spry as a man of forty. Comes of a long-lived family, too, I understand. His father was nearly ninety before he cashed in. Poor Gale may have to wait a long time, after all, before he gets his hands on that money.” “I’ve an idea that he’ll have to wait a very long time,” the Camera Chap answered grimly. CHAPTER XXXI. RISING FORTUNES. A day after the arrival of the Camera Chap in New York, a middle-aged man of exceedingly prosperous appearance entered the _Bulletin_ office, and handed a card to Fred Carroll, on which was printed: “Mr. Oliver Cheston, the National Advertising Agency, New York, Chicago, San Francisco.” Carroll wondered that a man of Mr. Cheston’s evident standing in the business world should have such a cheap-looking card, for the pasteboard was printed instead of being engraved, and it looked as if the job had been hastily done, some of the letters being blurred. Nevertheless, the proprietor of the _Bulletin_ received his visitor with great politeness. He was enough of a philosopher to realize that a man is not always to be judged by the quality of his stationery. Mr. Oliver Cheston’s first words took Carroll’s breath away. “I have come to see you about placing some advertising in your newspaper,” he announced quietly; “about five thousand dollars’ worth.” “Five thousand dollars’ worth!” the proprietor of the _Bulletin_ gasped. “Is this a joke?”