“He said I inherited some of your qualities,” answered Morey with another smile.
“The kind old flatterer,” murmured Morey’s mother.
Nor could she then understand why Morey laughed so heartily. As the two left the table, on an inspiration, the boy took his mother in his arms and kissed her. It was the last kiss he gave her for some weeks.
[CHAPTER IX]
THE SECRET OF AN OLD DESK.
Full as the day had been for Morey the coming of night did not put a stop to the working of his brain. Thinking seriously for the first time in his life, he had enough to engage him. Concerning his encounter with Judge Lomax he said nothing. In comparison with the difficult problem of saving his mother’s property this encounter was a small matter. And yet it was this that decided his first step in the struggle that was before him.
The boy was hungry for advice, the counsel of some good friend. His first thought was of Lieutenant Purcell. The soldier was a stranger, but Morey had already cut himself off from the people at Lee’s Court House whom, twenty-four hours before, he would have counted as his best friends.
“There isn’t one of them, young or old,” said the lad to himself, “who would give me a square deal if it cost them a cent.” And by “them” he meant Carey, Barber and Bradner of the bank.