"That's a good thing. I am glad you are going to investigate it. Good-bye."
The trunks being all brought down by the time Bob got out of the library, he took his seat in the carriage and was whirled away to his new home. Of course he felt bad on leaving the place of his boyhood, but there was no help for it. Gus held the curtain aside so that he could watch him, and when the carriage had disappeared through the iron gate he opened the door and went down to his father.
CHAPTER IX.
BOB CALLS ON A LAWYER.
"There!" said Bob, when his uncle's gates had closed behind him and the carriage was fairly under way for his new home; "I hope I shall never go inside those grounds again unless my father is here to go with me. Now, Ben, I would like to know what you mean by going inside that saloon? You wouldn't have done so when my father was here."
"No indeed, I wouldn't," said Ben, with a hearty shake of his head. "But the truth was I didn't have a heart for any work, and somehow I wanted to be near where I could see the ships come in. But I don't owe him no twenty dollars for grub and lodging."
"Did you ever spend a cent in his house?"
"Yes, sir. I have treated some of my old mates, but I paid him right down. As for lodging, you will say, when you see my little house, that I don't need to go to the saloon to find a bed."
"Then I wouldn't pay him a cent. Don't you go near him again. He is worse than I ever thought him. He's a land-shark. But, Ben, I don't believe that Barlow had anything to do with my father's disappearance."
"No more do I; but the question is, who did? If it hadn't been for what Barlow said when he thought I was asleep I should think the cap'n was dead; but he says he is liable to come back when nobody isn't expecting him. I tell you, that proves something."
"It certainly does," said Bob, becoming excited. "I will see Mr. Gibbons about it this afternoon."