"'Well, I'll see, Ichabod,' says he. 'Ole letters are quare things,
Ichabod,' says he; 'but I'll look at it.'

"And he looked. He looked it up and down two er three times, and then he
read it clean through two er three times more. And then he took up his
spectacles off'n the table, and he read it ag'in, and he looked jest as
astonished as if he'd seen a ghost.

"Says he, 'I can't make it out. Reuben Wallace has been dead a year, and
this is the fust breath o' evidence that he left any money, although
everybody in this town has been clean up a stump about his _not_ leavin'
any. But this letter--dated two months afore he died,' says he, 'is from
a coal merchant in New York, findin' _that_ in the printin' up top o'
the letter. And it makes reference to the sum o' forty thousand dollars
invested by Reuben Wallace in his business. There's more in it,' says
he; 'but that's the principal thing.'

"And he got up and stood thar, shakin' his head and lookin' as if a
feather'd knock him down. And, says he, 'if this means anything at all,
Ichabod, it means an awful lot! It means that Reuben Wallace was worth
forty thousand dollars at the time of his death, and that that forty
thousand dollars was invested with this New York coal merchant. Thar's
one thing fer us to do, Ichabod,' says he, 'and that's to write to this
man in New York and see what's the meanin' of all this 'ere! That's a
simple thing, and I'll do it,' says he. 'I'll do it, this minute.' And
down he sot and begun to write; and when he'd got done with that air old
letter, I put it back into my pocket ag'in.

"And," pursued Ichabod, whose voice had grown shrill as ever, in
excitement, "I come away and I set to lookin' ye up, to tell ye every