“Oh! that’s nice of you to say so,” laughed Dick, a little harshly; “but then you’re my chum, and naturally prejudiced. I thought the same when Dit told how great Nat’s stuff was; but now that Peg has endorsed it too, there must be something in the thing. But I won’t allow myself to get discouraged, I promise you that, Leslie. Now, let’s change the subject again.”
“All right, Dick. How are things going over at your house nowadays—of course, I mean with your wonderful prodigal Uncle Silas, who spent his life knocking around the world having a good time, and when old age and sickness overtook him suddenly remembered that he had a sister somewhere, and hunted her up so she could take care of him?”
Leslie spoke pretty bitterly, because this was a sore subject with him. On the other hand, Dick shook his head as though in disapproval of such radical views.
“I’d rather you didn’t say such things to me, you know, old fellow,” he told his chum.
“But sure you must be suspecting something like that deep down in your own heart, Dick!” protested Leslie, earnestly.
“I don’t let myself think of poor old Uncle Silas that way,” said Dick, firmly. “He’s told us a whole lot of his struggles, and how often he thought he had his hand on a big fortune, only to get fooled time and again. And he always says that the one thing he thought of was to hunt his young sister up, if she still lived, and provide for her if fortune was kind to him.”
Leslie gave an incredulous snort at hearing Dick say that.
“Bah! that’s a clever little yarn he’s gotten up to pull the wool over your eyes,” he went on to say, indignantly. “If he ever had struck it rich, none of you’d ever’ve heard from him. Like as not he’d have gone in for a big time. But after he began to feel old age and sickness gripping him, of course he wanted to hunt Sister Polly up, and spin a tale of hard luck.”
“Well, I reckon you and I will never agree on that subject, Leslie.”
“I’m really surprised at you being taken in and fooled so easy, Dick.”