“It is unpleasant, for I don’t want to speak to the man who went deliberately to work to ruin my father,” said Bob, with no little bitterness in his tones. “But I will do as you say. I suppose I shall have to address him as ‘Uncle Bob,’ but I assure you I never would do it if my father had not always spoken of him in that way in his letters.”
So saying, Bob arose and walked over to the seats that were occupied by his relatives. They looked up in surprise when the boy stopped before them, Arthur assuming a haughty stare, while his father seemed trying to remember where he had seen Bob before.
“Pardon me,” said the latter. “Do I address Mr. Robert Howard, of Bolton, Indiana?”
“Bless my soul!” cried Uncle Bob, jumping to his feet and shaking his nephew’s hand with both his own. “I thought I knew you—and you are my brother’s son, who was named after me, are you not? Arthur, this is the cousin, of whom you have so often heard me speak. Shake hands and be friends.”
The two boys did not greet each other with the cordiality that might have been expected of relatives who had long been separated. Each knew instinctively that the other was an enemy to him. Uncle Bob saw this very plainly, and he knew that much depended on securing his nephew’s good-will; but he went about it in the very best way calculated to excite his contempt.
“Sit down, Bob,” said he, taking the boy by the shoulders and trying to push him into the chair he had just vacated; “sit down, and let us have a family talk. Do you know that it is a long time since Arthur and I have seen you? How you have grown, and how well you are looking! You are getting to be quite a spruce young gentleman.”
“Thank you; I’ll not sit down,” said Bob, coldly. “I have a seat of my own in this car. I simply came here to tell you that my father was dead.”
Uncle Bob drew on a long face at once, and Arthur tried to do the same, but made a failure of it.
“Sad—very sad!” said the former. “I was greatly shocked to hear it. Very sudden, was it not?”
“Have you heard of it?” asked Bob in surprise.