When Matt reached the main part of the city his study of the situation had convinced him that he was doing exactly right. What his next step was to be he hardly knew. He hated to go back and tell George of his father's uncompromising attitude, and yet he felt the need of a talk with McGlory in order to lay future plans.
It was about one o'clock, and Matt went into a restaurant and ate his dinner. From there he went to the post office to see if any mail had followed him from San Francisco.
No mail had reached him from the West, but there was a postal card, posted that morning in Madison, which informed Matt that a certain express company had received, and was holding at his risk, a crated power boat on which there was a charge, for _transportation alone_, of $262.50.
When Matt read the postal card he was positive there was some mistake, and that it had been given to the wrong person. The card was addressed, plainly enough, to "Matt King, otherwise Motor Matt," but the king of the motor boys was not expecting a launch, had not ordered one, and was not intending to turn over $262.50 to the express company on what was manifestly an error.
He was on the point of handing the card back to the man at the post-office window, with the information that the card could not be for him, when he suddenly changed his mind and decided to go to the express company's office and rectify the mistake at headquarters.
A little inquiry put him on the right road, and within five minutes he was leaning over a counter at the express office, showing the clerk the card and telling him the boat must be for some other Matt King.
"There's no other Matt King in Madison," protested the clerk, "and it's a cinch there's no other Motor Matt. You're the fellow the boat is for."
"But that charge!" exclaimed Matt. "It can't be for transportation alone. It must be a C. O. D. collection for part of the price of the boat. I haven't bought any boat, and am not expecting any one to send me a boat. I'm a stranger here, and only reached Madison to-day."
"Can't help that. If you're Motor Matt the boat's for you. If you refuse it we'll have to notify the shipper, and if we can't get any satisfaction from the shipper, the boat will have to be sold for the charges."