On the fourth day, Browning said to his friend: "Jim, old pard, I must be off to-morrow. You have had a good visit. Come over to England with me for a month, and help me through with--Rose and the old man." "Agreed, Jack," said Sedgwick. "I want to fix up some little things here, and I do not want to be around when the fixing shall be understood. It will be a good excuse to get away." Then going to a desk, he wrote a few words, took a bill of exchange for $100,000 from his pocketbook, endorsed it, making it payable to his father, folded the bill inside the letter, sealed it and directed it to his father; then putting the letter in his pocket, said, "That will make it all right." At supper that evening he informed the family that he was going on the early train with his friend and might be gone a month or six weeks, after which he believed he would return, settle down and become steady. All tried to dissuade him, but Browning helped him, telling the family he needed his friend's help on serious business; and so that night the kindling was put in the kitchen stove, the dough for biscuits for breakfast was set, the tea-kettle filled, the chickens fixed for frying, and the coffee ground. It was but a little after daylight next morning when, the breakfast over, they were ready to start. They shook hands all round, and when it came to saying good-bye to his father, Sedgwick drew out the letter, and giving it to the old man, said: "Father, when you hear the train pull out of the village, open that letter. It contains a little keepsake for you which I picked up by a scratch in Nevada." And they were off. When that letter was opened, and the astounding figures on the bill were read and comprehended, what a time there was at that house, and how the neighbors came again to see the wonderful paper, and how it was figured how many farms it would buy, what houses it would build and furnish, and how the boy who had been expelled from school for fighting had done it all! What a smashing of old theories it made, and how every wild boy in the neighborhood to whom the evil example of the bad Sedgwick boy had been held up as an illustration of total depravity and as proof that nothing of good ever came to a youth that would fight and get expelled from school, rejoiced! To these, what a day of exultation that bill of exchange brought! But it was only a day, before there began to circulate rumors that the whole thing was but a joke; that the bill would be repudiated when presented for payment, or at most that it was only for $1,000. Sedgwick, _pere_, with his sons, lost no time in testing the matter. Sedgwick had written in the letter that though the bill was drawn on New York, any bank in Cincinnati would cash it. So they repaired to the city, and calling on their lawyer, asked him to go with them and identify them at some bank, as they desired to get a little check cashed. He complied.