"Oh, you were, were you?" said Bob, with something like a sneer.
"Yes. Come in. I want to talk to you."
"You will have to talk to me mighty clever to put me out of the notion of having Gus and Barlow arrested," said Bob, seating himself in the nearest chair and placing his hat upon the table. "I never heard of such a thing before. Why, it is downright—"
"Why, what is the matter?" asked Mr. Layton. He thought he spoke calmly enough, but his voice trembled in spite of himself.
"There's no use of feigning ignorance," said Bob, in a tone of deep disgust. "Gus and Barlow have been laying a plan to kidnap Ben and me to-night and send us off to some country we never dreamed of. Gus has told you all about it, I suppose? If he didn't, he ought to. You sympathize with him more deeply than anybody else."
"Yes, I heard about that," said Mr. Layton. "Ben was asleep and dreamed it all. You surely don't suppose that I would agree to anything of that sort?"
"You may not have agreed to it, but the plot has been laid, all the same. What were you going to say to me?"
"Gus has just been here, talking about you, and if he was going to send you off to foreign countries I don't see why he should propose to give you a hundred dollars a month."
"Have you agreed to that?"
"I have."