“You administered the estate,” said the boy, “and you are still my guardian, I believe.”
“Yes. Your father left no will, and the court appointed me administrator and guardian. I’ve done the best I could to untangle the snarl Wallace Daring left his business in, and the affairs of the estate are now closed and the administrator discharged.”
“Was—was there anything left?” inquired Phil, anxiously.
“Your father was a wonderful man, Phil,” resumed the lawyer, with calm deliberation, “and no doubt he made a lot of money in his day. But he had one fault as a financier—he was too conscientious. I knew Wallace Daring intimately, from the time he came to this town twenty years ago, and he never was guilty of a crooked or dishonest act.”
Phil’s face brightened at this praise of his father and he straightened up and returned the lawyer’s look with interest.
“Then there was nothing disgraceful in his failure, sir?”
“No hint of disgrace,” was the positive reply. “Daring made a fortune from his sugar factory, and made it honestly. But three years ago all the beet sugar industries of the country pooled their interests—formed a trust, in other words—and invited your father to join them. He refused, believing such a trust unjust and morally unlawful. They threatened him, but still he held out, claiming this to be a free country wherein every man has the right to conduct his business as he pleases. I told him he was a fool; but I liked his sterling honesty.
“The opposition determined to ruin him, and finally succeeded. Mind you, Phil, I don’t say Wallace Daring wouldn’t have won the fight had he lived, for he was in the right and had a host of friends to back him up; but his accidental death left his affairs in chaos. I had hard work, as administrator, to make the assets meet the indebtedness. By selling the sugar factory to the trust at a big figure and disposing of your old home quite advantageously, I managed to clear up the estate and get my discharge from the courts. But the surplus, I confess, was practically nothing.”
Phil’s heart sank. He thought earnestly over this statement for a time.
“We—we’re pretty poor, then, I take it, sir?”