"You will repent this insubordination," said Mrs. Kent, angrily. "You will yet return home in rags."
"Never!" answered Jasper, with emphasis. "Good-afternoon, Mrs. Kent."
"Drive on, Nicholas!" said Mrs. Kent, angrily. "How I hate that boy!" she ejaculated.
"It strikes me, mother, you've got the best of it," said Nicholas. "You've got his property, and as to his company, we can do without that."
AN UNPLEASANT ADVENTURE.
A week later Jasper was one of the passengers on a train bound for St. Louis, and already within sixty miles of that flourishing city. He had stopped over at Niagara and Cincinnati—a day or so at each place. He gratified his desire to see the great cataract, and felt repaid for doing so, though the two stops trenched formidably upon his small capital. Indeed, at the moment when he is introduced anew to the reader's notice he had but ten dollars remaining of the sum with which he started. He was, however, provided, besides, with a through ticket to St. Louis.
He had been sitting alone, when a stranger entering the car seated himself in the vacant seat.
Looking up, Jasper noticed that he was a tall man, shabbily dressed, with thin, sallow face and a swelling in the left cheek, probably produced by a quid of tobacco.
"Good-mornin', colonel," said the stranger, sociably.