"You were out late last night," went on the lawyer, after a moment of silence.
"Only until ten o'clock. I went to a concert given by the college boys."
"Humph! A fine way to waste your money."
"It was my own money," answered Mark, with spirit.
"Nevertheless, you had no need to throw it away, young man. But don't talk now—get through with those papers," and the lawyer turned away, and departed for a nearby court.
Mark Radley was a lad of sixteen, tall, broad-shouldered, and rather good-looking, with brown eyes and curly brown hair. He was an orphan, his father having died when he was but five years old and his mother departing this life when the boy was fourteen. Mark had had two sisters, but both had died when quite young.
When Mark was ten years of age, Mrs. Radley had met and married Jadell Powers, a man ten years her senior, and known in Philadelphia as a fairly successful lawyer. Powers was a widower, having one son, who had run away from home when out of grammar school. Those who had dealings with him knew him to be very irritable and a good deal of a miser, but Mrs. Radley knew nothing of his shortcomings until they were married several months. Then her eyes were opened, and for four years—up to the day of her death—she suffered much, but always in silence.
Almost from the start, Mark could not get along with his step-father, and boy and man had more than one open quarrel and on three different occasions the youth was on the point of running away, but the presence of his mother deterred him.
When Mrs. Radley died Mark felt he was free, but much to his consternation he was given to understand that his mother had made no will and that his step-father had legal rights in the property which could not be ignored. By slick management Jadell Powers had himself made Mark's guardian.
"You must toe the mark after this, young man," said the lawyer, after matters had been adjusted. Then he took Mark out of high school and made the boy enter his law office, although Mark did not take to a legal calling in the slightest degree.