"I don't know, but it's someone, Master Dick, who your dog doesn't like, for he's growling something fierce."
"I'll come down," said the young millionaire, and he hurried to the library. As he entered a tall, thin man, with a curious little bunch of whiskers on his chin, arose.
"Well, I must say, Nephew Richard," he began, in a rasping voice, "that this is a nice reception for me. Your horrible beast nearly bit me. The house is no place for dogs."
"I'm sorry that Grit annoyed you, Uncle Ezra," said Dick as he recognized the miserly man whom he had once visited.
"Hum!" grunted the old man. "If I hadn't stood on a chair he would have bit me, and then I'd get hydrophobia, and die. Your father would have had to pay damages, too."
"I'm glad no such thing as that happened, Uncle Ezra."
"Hum! Where's your father?"
"Down to the bank. I can telephone, and let him know that you are here."
"It isn't necessary. No need of wearing out the wires that way. I can wait. I hear he has some foolish notion of sending you to a military school."
"I am going to a military academy, Uncle Ezra, in accordance with my mother's wishes."