“A hundred and ninety dollars apiece! That’s more money than any of us ever saw before. I say, boys, what are we going to do with it?” There was a pause. “Let him speak first who can speak best,” said Irv Strong. “So, Ed Lowry, what are you going to do with _your_ share of the money?” “I’m going shopping with it--shopping for some ‘bargain counter’ health,” replied the tall boy. “How do you mean?” asked two boys at once, and eagerly. “Well, my phthisic was very bad last winter, you know. It isn’t phthisic at all, I think. Phthisic is consumption, and I haven’t that--yet.” He spoke hopefully, rather than confidently. He hoped his malady might not be a fatal one, but sometimes he had doubts. Let me say here that his hope was better founded than his fear. For at this latter end of the century, Ed Lowry--under his own proper name and not under that which I am hiding him behind in this story--is not only living, but famous. His bodily strength has always been small, but the work he has done in the world with that big brain of his has been very great, and his name--the real one I mean--is familiar to everybody who reads books or cares for American history. “But whatever it is,” Ed continued, “the doctor wants me to go South for this winter, and now that I’ve got money enough, I’m going to do it.” “But you haven’t got money enough,” said Irv Strong. “A hundred and ninety dollars won’t much more than pay your steamboat fare to New Orleans and back. What are you going to live on down there--especially if you get sick?” The irrepressible Phil selected this as the time to wake up. “Well,” he said, sitting up in the sand and locking his muscular arms around his knees, “_I’m_ in this game a little bit myself. I’ve got one whole hundred and ninety dollars’ worth of stake in that big pile of iron; and from Mrs. Dupont down to the last one-suspendered chap in the lot of you, you are all always talking about my ‘obstinate pertinacity.’ Well, my ‘pertinacity’ just now ‘obstinately’ declares that Ed shall take my share in the stake and spend it for his health. He shakes his head, but if he won’t, then I ‘solemnly swear or affirm’ that I’ll take every dollar of it out to the channel there and throw it in. I’ll--” But Phil had broken down. His affection for his half-invalid brother was the one thing that nothing could ever overcome. He didn’t weep. That is to say, none of the boys saw him shed tears, but instead of finishing the sentence he was uttering, he suddenly became interested in the pebbles along the river shore, fifty yards lower down the stream.