I had a letter from Uncle Arthur this morning asking me to come and see him about my Cumberland ore property, and I have just spent an hour with him." Peter put down his glass: "You had a letter from Arthur Breen--about--what do you mean, Jack." "Just what I say." Peter moved close to the table, and looked at the boy in wonderment.
"Well, what did he want ?" He was all attention now.

Arthur Breen sending for Jack!--and after all that had happened! Well--well! "Wants me to put the Cumberland ore property father left me into one of his companies." "That fox!" The explosion cleared the atmosphere for an instant.
"That fox!" answered Jack, in a confirmatory tone; and then followed an account of the interview, the boy chuckling at the end of every sentence in his delight over the situation.
"And what are YOU going to do ?" asked Peter in an undecided tone.

He had heard nothing so comical as this for years.
"Going to do nothing,--that is, nothing with Uncle Arthur.

In the first place, the property is worthless, unless half a million of money is spent upon it." "Or is SAID to have been spent upon it," rejoined Peter with a smile, remembering the Breen methods.
"Exactly so;--and in the second place, I would rather tear up the deed than have it added to Uncle Arthur's stock of balloons." Peter drummed on the table-cloth and looked out of the window.

The boy was right in principle, but then the property might not be a balloon at all; might in fact be worth a great deal more than the boy dreamed of.
That Arthur Breen had gone out of his way to send for Jack--knowing, as Peter did, how systematically both he and his wife had abused and ridiculed him whenever his name was mentioned--was positive evidence to Peter's mind not only that the property had a value of some kind but that the discovery was of recent origin.
"Would you know yourself, Jack, what the property was worth,--that is, do you feel yourself competent to pass upon its value ?" asked Peter, lifting his glass to his lips.