"But, Augustus, I don't want to go to jail," said Mr. Layton, in a trembling voice. "Think what a position it would be for me. Now, I think I can see a way out of it, and that is by buying Bob."
"How are you going to do it?" asked Gus, who became interested at once.
"I will give him a hundred dollars a month if he will take his trunks out of this house and never come back here again," said Mr. Layton.
"That's the idea!" exclaimed Gus, unconsciously uttering the same expression that Barlow had made use of a short time before. "But a hundred dollars is a power of money, father. Don't you suppose if you were to offer him seventy-five dollars it would do just as well?"
"No, I don't think it would. Bob has always had money when he chose to call for it, and a hundred dollars is little enough. Ben has got a nice little house down here, and Bob can go there and live as well as not. Of one thing we will be sure, anyway: Bob will never come to this house again."
"That's the idea!" said Gus, again. "How will you send him the money—by check?"
"I'll send him a check the first of every month; that will save him the trouble of coming here."
"That won't interfere with what you are to give me?"
"Not at all; and I think it is the best thing we can do. I wish you would be around when I talk to him—"
"Oh, that's asking too much," said Gus, getting upon his feet. "You must remember that I was in the saloon when we talked of kidnapping him, and that it would hardly do."