“I know,” Wampus’s mother said, “but I felt rather sorry for him because he has only one leg.”
Wampus had been waiting for a chance to talk, because he was so eager to tell about the 1804 dollar and the treasure, and now he had the chance, and he lit into it. He handed the dollar to his father and went on to tell him about all of us finding it, and about Jibby Jones guessing there was hidden treasure, but he would not say where we had found the dollar nor where the treasure was. He was too smart for that, because just then Mary came in with the supper she had been keeping hot in the oven for him. She stood around and listened while they talked about the treasure and the 1804 dollar and how valuable it was, but Wampus did not think anything about that, because Mary had been their hired girl for a couple of years.
“And how much treasure does your Jibby Jones think you will find?” Mr. Smale asked Wampus.
“He don’t know,” Wampus said. “Maybe thousands of dollars. Maybe none. But, anyway, we’ve got this dollar and it ought to be worth almost a thousand dollars, Jibby says.”
They went on talking it over, and Mr. Smale was sort of amused and did not believe in the treasure much, but Wampus wouldn’t say where we had been, or when we were going to dig for the treasure, and Mary went into the kitchen. So that was all of that.
Then Wampus told his father and mother that the one-legged man Mary had in the kitchen was the Tough Customer that Orph Cadwallader had run off the island, but neither Mr. Smale nor Mrs. Smale seemed to think much about it. All Mr. Smale said was: “He had no business on the island, but I suppose it is all right for Mary to feed a cousin once in a while. How about it, mother?”
“It has to be,” Mrs. Smale said; “it is so hard to get help these days.”
XX
Orlando
The next morning we were on our way to Sunday school. I waited for Jibby and we picked up Wampus and Tad and Skippy, and we all had a good look at the 1804 dollar, because Wampus’s mother had dipped it and it was bright and beautiful. We passed it around and talked about it, and then we noticed the Tough Customer ahead of us. He did look tough, too, with his one peg-leg, and he swayed on his feet like a sailor—or on his one foot and one peg—and when he got to the corner he stood and waited.
We had no use for him, and we did not want to talk to him, but when we came up to the Tough Customer he said “Howdy!” to us.
“Are you the boys that have that 1804 dollar?” he asked.
“Yes, we are,” I said.
“My cousin told me about it,” he said. “She saw it in the dining-room last night. I’d like to have a look at it.”
Wampus had the dollar. I wished the man had not stopped us; there was something about his stopping us that I did not like. To see him smiling and trying to be pleasant and nice to us gave me the shivers.
“I know a man that wants to buy an 1804 dollar, boys,” he said. “I met him in St. Louis, only a couple of months ago, and he told me he would give more than the market price for one. ‘You travel about the world a lot,’ he said to me, ‘and you’re likely to run across one any day. If you do,’ he says, ‘let me know. Only,’ he says, ‘don’t try to fool me with no counterfeits, because I’m too wise for that.’ So he showed me how to tell the difference between a real one and a counterfeit one. I ain’t sure, but from what Mary told me I reckon you’ve got hold of a counterfeit one that someone threw away because it wasn’t worth a red cent. Let me see it; I can tell you in a minute.”
So Wampus pulled our dollar out of his pocket and handed it to the Tough Customer. I had half an idea he meant to try to run away with it, and I got ready to make a dive for his wooden leg if he tried anything of that kind, but he did not. He just stood there, turning the dollar over and over between his two fingers and his thumb. I guess Jibby Jones must have thought what I thought, for he sort of edged to the far side of the Tough Customer.
“Well, I declare!” the Tough Customer said. “I would not have thought it! It is a genuine—”
And just then he dropped the dollar! It slipped between his thumb and his two fingers and I made a dive for it, and so did Wampus, but so did the Tough Customer, too, and we all three came together ker-plunk, and the dollar jangled on the grating and disappeared.
For, you see, we were standing right over an iron grating that covered an opening into the Raccoon Creek sewer. The dollar went through the grating and into the sewer, and that was the last we ever saw of that dollar. The Tough Customer swore. He swore something that was awful to hear, and he got down on his knees and peered into the sewer, and then he moaned and groaned and said we would never forgive him, and he was about right about that—we never did.
I don’t know how long we stood there, but a crowd began to gather—folks going to Sunday school, and men with the Sunday papers under their arms, and a couple of automobiles, and so we boys slipped away and left the Tough Customer
