“That fellow may be a thief,” he soliloquized, “but whatever he is he’s white. Just imagine, the only friend I’ve got in Chicago is a safe-blower.”
CHAPTER IX.
HAROLD SITS IN A GAME.
When Elizabeth Compton broached to her father the subject of a much-needed rest and a trip to the Orient, he laughed at her. “Why, girl,” he cried, “I was never better in my life! Where in the world did you get this silly idea?”
“Harold noticed it first,” she replied, “and called my attention to it; and now I can see that you really have been failing.”
“Failing!” ejaculated Compton, with a scoff. “Failing nothing! You’re a pair of young idiots. I’m good for twenty years more of hard work, but, as I told Harold, I would like to quit and travel, and I shall do so just as soon as I am convinced that he can take my place.”
“Couldn’t he do it now?” asked the girl.
“No, I am afraid not,” replied Compton. “It is too much to expect of him, but I believe that in another year he will be able to.”
And so Compton put an end to the suggestion that he travel for his health, and that night when Bince called she told him that she had been unable to persuade her father that he needed a rest.