"There, there, Dick, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," cried his aunt hastily. "I would give a good deal if you had your watch back."
Supper was waiting, but Dick had no appetite, and ate but little. Tom braced up sufficiently to take some toast and tea, and declared that he would be all right by morning and so he was.
"Here is a letter for Tom from Larry Colby," cried Dick during the course, of the evening.
"I declare, I forgot all about it, Tom, until this minute."
"I don't blame you, Dick," was the reply, with a sickly smile. "You read it for me. The light hurts my head," and Tom closed his eyes to listen.
Larry Colby was a New York lad who in years gone by had been one of Tom's chums. The letter was just such a one as any boy might write to another, and need have no place here. Yet one paragraph interested everybody in the sitting room:
"Next week I am to pack my trunk and go to Putnam Hall Military Academy [wrote Larry Colby]. Father says it is a very fine military, school, and he has recommended it to your uncle."
"Putnam Hall Military Academy!" mused Tom. "I wonder where it is?"
"It is over in Seneca County, on Cayuga Lake," replied Randolph
Rover, and something like a smile appeared on his face.
"On Cayuga Lake, uncle!" cried Sam. "Why, that's a splendid location, isn't it?"