"Oh, you did it—there's no question about that!" interrupted the other. "I was miserable enough to do anything rash, but the kind way in which you spoke to me, and the cheerfulness of yourself, and your chum, made me ashamed to do what I had contemplated. It started me on a new road, thinking of you, and I made up my mind I'd begin over again.
"Now it might seem to you that I ought to look after this matter myself—going out there and filing this paper—but the truth of the matter is that I'm quite disgusted with myself—not knowing enough to take care of my money when I had it. I deserve to lose it. But if you can save it I'm willing to give you whatever share your lawyer thinks fair."
"I'm not doing it for that," declared Dick. "I'm doing it for—well, I'll tell you later," he finished. But to himself he said:
"I'm doing this for the honor of my family. If he ever finds out it was my uncle who ruined him he'll not think much of my father and myself, even if I was instrumental in saving his life. No, I've got to keep still about that part of it, and save his fortune for the honor of our family. And I'll do it, too, in spite of Uncle Ezra!"
"Well, it's awfully good of you," went on Mr. Wardell, after a pause. "Now I'll see our old family lawyer, Mr. William Tunison, and have him arrange with you. You say the papers have to be filed on a certain date?"
"Yes."
"Then why can't they be sent out there, and held until it is time to present them to the court?"
"Because the law in this matter is peculiar. The documents have to be filed between certain dates—they can't be presented before the one, nor after the other. There is a period of a few days during which they can legally be presented to the courts, and in that time only. If you sent them out there now they might get filed away in some pigeon-hole, and be forgotten until it was too late."
"I see."
"So the only thing to do is for some one to look after the matter personally. And I'll do it!"