"Hugh, this thing is really getting serious, seems to me. If those ladies think it their duty to quit giving Matilda work the poor things will starve, because all they've got to depend on now is what she earns by her needle. Something ought to be done to rid her of that wart that's fastened on her bounty; if she won't give him up of her own will, then some of us ought to see to it that he's chased out of the neighborhood."
"Hold on, Thad, go slow," warned the more cautious Hugh. "I feel pretty much the same as you do about it, but we mustn't think of trying any White Cap business around such a respectable town as Scranton. There's still lots of time to investigate; and if the worst comes we can appeal to the mayor to help. Perhaps the police could look up the man's record, and make him clear out on the plea that he's got a bad reputation. That would answer our purpose, and at the same time keep within the law."
Thad looked wonderfully pleased.
"I didn't tell you something more I saw, Hugh," he now went on to say. "When the three ladies came out, Brother Lu he managed to be there in plain sight. He tried to be polite like, and was of course seized with one of those fake fits of coughing right before them. Matilda ran to his side, and put her arm around him looking defiantly at Ma as if to say: 'There, don't you see how far gone he is, and how can you ask me to be so inhuman and unsisterly as to tell him he must go out again into the cold, cruel world that has treated him so badly?'
"The ladies looked after Brother Lu as he staggered away, as if they hardly knew what to think. But it happened, Hugh, that I could watch the man from where I was snuggled down, and would you believe me, he had no sooner got behind the little building they use for a woodshed than he started to dance a regular old hoe-down, snapping his fingers, and looking particularly merry. I tell you I could hardly hold in, I was so downright mad; I wanted to rush out and denounce him for an old fraud of the first water. But on considering how useless that would be, besides giving it away that I suspected. him, and was spying on his actions, I managed to get a grip on myself again.
"After things had sizzled out, Hugh, I came away, and ran nearly all the distance between the Hosmer cottage and your house, I was that eager to tell you how the land lay. And now, once for all, what can we do to bounce that fraud, and free poor Matilda from the three-big-meals-a-day brother who's fastened on her like a leech?"
Hugh nodded his head as though he had been thinking while his chum continued to tell of his experiences. From his manner Thad jumped to the conclusion that Hugh might have something interesting to say, and in this he proved to be right.
CHAPTER VIII
A BAD OUTLOOK FOR BROTHER LU
"Now that you've told me such an interesting thing about this queer tramp we ran across the other day, and who turns out to be Mrs. Hosmer's only brother," Hugh was saying, "I want to return the compliment, and explain that I've been doing a little missionary work or scouting on my own hook."