Thereupon he attacked another set of big written volumes, and with these he was busy as long as two hours more. In the end, “By Jingo, Greg,” he cried, “here's a state of things! He didn't take out any Letters of Administration at all.”
“Well,” I queried, not understanding the meaning of this circumstance, “what of that? What does that signify?”
“Why, that signifies an even darker and more systematic piece of fraud than I had suspected. In order to cheat you out of your share, he failed to comply with the law. He didn't go through the proper formalities to get control of her property, but simply took possession of it without authority. And now we've got him completely at our mercy. We could prosecute him criminally, if we liked. We could send him to State Prison. Oh! won't we make him hop? I say, Greg, do you want to have some fun?”
“How? What way?”
“Well, sir, if you want to have some fun, I'll tell you what let's do. Let's go call on your Uncle Peter, and confront him with this little piece of villainy, and politely ask him to explain it: and then see him squirm. It'll sort of square accounts with him for the number of times he's given you a flogging.”
“O, no! I—I guess we'd better not,” I demurred, faltering at the prospect of a personal encounter with my redoubtable relative.
“But, man alive, you have nothing to fear. We've got the whip-hand of him. Just think, we can threaten him with criminal prosecution. Oh! come on. It'll be the jolliest kind of a lark.”
Well, I allowed myself to be persuaded; and we set forth for Uncle Peter's office, Ripley all agog for excitement, and I trying not to appear afraid. But Uncle Peter wasn't in. An oldish man, who seemed to be in charge, informed us that the Jedge had got a touch of the rheumatiz, and was stayin' hum.
“Never mind,” said Ripley to me; “we'll visit him at his home, we'll beard him in his den. Come along!”
I tried to beg off, but Rip insisted; and I weakly gave in.