With that he took out his fountain pen, reached in a drawer of the table for a check book, and soon the silence was broken by the scratching of pen on paper. Hurd Applegate wrote out two checks, each for five hundred dollars and these he handed to the boys. Frank and Joe accepted them with thanks, folded them up and put them in their pockets. "And that, I think," concluded Mr. Applegate, "finishes the mystery of the Tower robbery." "Thanks to the Hardy boys!" chimed in his sister. "Real detectives, both of them. I must ask them up for supper some night." CHAPTER XXIV THE LAST OF THE TOWER CASE The discovery of the Tower Mansion treasure was a Bayport sensation for almost a week--and a week is a long time for any sensation to last, even in Bayport. People said that they knew all along that Mr. Robinson was innocent of the theft, and went as far out of their way to be nice to him as they had gone out of their way to be unkind to him and ignore him when he was accused of crime. People too, were loud in their praises of the Hardy boys, and everybody predicted a bright future for them and said they knew all along that the lads were bound to solve the mystery if they kept at it long enough. All of this the boys took with a grain of salt, as the saying is, for they knew that the public is fickle and as quick to condemn failure as it is to praise success. Frank and Joe did not let the adulation turn their heads. "When we couldn't find the treasure everybody said we were just nuisances--little boys trying to play detective," laughed Frank. "Now that we have found it, all that is forgotten. The main thing is that we've proved to dad that we know how to keep our eyes and ears open." "And we've got a thousand dollars between us." "A mighty nice start for a bank account." "I'll say it is! I wish another mystery would come along." "We can't expect to get a reward for every case we work on--and we can't expect to solve 'em all, either," Frank pointed out. "We can't expect to get many cases to try our hand at. We're not professionals just yet." "No, but we will be, some day." This conversation took place as the Hardy boys were on their way up to Tower Mansion about a week later. Adelia Applegate, who had taken a great fancy to the lads, in violent contrast to her dislike of them on the day they had gone to make a search of the old tower, had invited them up to the Tower Mansion for supper. She had also asked them to invite a number of their chums. So Slim Robinson, Chet Morton, Biff Hooper, Jerry Gilroy, Phil Cohen and Tony Prito had all been invited by the brothers to attend. When the Hardy boys reached the Mansion they found that the others had already arrived. "We're waiting for you," shrilled Miss Applegate, who was decked out in an ancient yellow gown with remarkable trimmings of black and red. "Everybody's hungry."