“Well, I’ll pay for the damage done—as soon as I get the money. I haven’t any now—Dad’s got too much to pay on Uncle Wilbur’s account.” Nat 276 swallowed another lump in his throat. “I’m sorry I did it now, Phil, honest I am,” he went on, brokenly.
“Well, if that’s the case, let us drop the matter, Nat,” was the instant reply. “I don’t believe in hitting a fellow when he is down. You haven’t got to pay me anything. The whole thing is past and gone,—and that ends it.”
“Thank you.” Nat wanted to say something more, but his voice suddenly broke and he turned away to hide his emotion, and then walked away.
“He’s hit and hit hard,” said Roger, in a low voice.
“And you did well to drop that matter, Phil,” added Dave. “Maybe Nat has learned a lesson he won’t easily forget.”
Dave was right about the lesson Nat Poole had learned. He was deeply humiliated, both by the exposure concerning the feast and by what had been learned concerning his insane uncle, and for a long time was quite another boy.
It may be added here that at a new sanitarium, and under first-class medical treatment, a marked change came over Wilbur Poole, and in less than a year he was completely cured of his weakmindedness. With a nurse as a companion he went into the country to rest both body and mind, and later on came out into the world again as well as anybody. Strange to say, he remembered nothing 277 of calling himself the King of Sumatra, nor of blowing up Jason Sparr’s hotel. But others did not forget about the blowing up, and the damage done had to be settled for by Mr. Aaron Poole, who was his brother’s guardian and manager of his estate for the time being.