astonishment upon their faces.

"Why, your unknown traveller must have been Monte Cristo, or Rothschild
at the least!" said Robert. "I am bound to say, Laura, that I think you
have lost your bet."

"Oh, I am quite content to lose it. I never heard of such a piece of
luck. What a perfectly delightful man this must be to know."

"But I can't take his money," said Hector Spurling, looking somewhat
ruefully at the note. "A little prize-money is all very well in its
way, but a Johnny must draw the line somewhere. Besides it must have
been a mistake. And yet he meant to give me something big, for
he could not mistake a note for a coin. I suppose I must advertise for
the fellow."

"It seems a pity too," remarked Robert. "I must say that I don't quite
see it in the same light that you do."

"Indeed I think that you are very Quixotic, Hector," said Laura
McIntyre. "Why should you not accept it in the spirit in which it was
meant? You did this stranger a service--perhaps a greater service than
you know of--and he meant this as a little memento of the occasion.
I do not see that there is any possible reason against your keeping it."

"Oh, come!" said the young sailor, with an embarrassed laugh, "it is not
quite the thing--not the sort of story one would care to tell at mess."

"In any case you are off to-morrow morning," observed Robert. "You have
no time to make inquiries about the mysterious Croesus. You must really