“But suppose he has given them to Uncle Richard?”
“Pish! what then? Your uncle would only pitch them into a drawer, and go away to forget them, and dream about the moon. You could go down on a visit, find out where they are, and bring them away.”
“I say, dad,” said Sam, with a sneer, “isn’t that very much like stealing?”
“No, no, no, no,” cried his father quickly; “only getting back some documents left in my charge—papers which I gave up during a severe illness, when I did not know what I was about. You understand?”
“Oh yes, father, I understand, but it looks ugly.”
“It would look uglier for you to be left almost without a penny, Sam, and your cousin to be well off.”
“Ye-es,” said Sam quietly, as he stood with his brows knit; “that would be ugly, dad.”
“Then you will go?”
“Perhaps. That depends. Not as you propose. They’d miss the papers, and I should get the credit of having taken them.”
James Brandon stared at his son in surprise, forgetting the fact that he had been training and moulding him for years to become a self-satisfied, selfish man, with only one idea, that of taking care of himself, no matter who suffered.