"He'll be back in just a little while!" interrupted Alice, briskly. "Did he tell you to come here?"
"Nope! I told myself!" replied the man. "I'm glad I did, too. This is nice place and you're nice girls, too. Sisters, I take it?"
"You need not discuss us!" exclaimed Ruth with dignity. "If you will leave word what your business with my father is I will have him call on you."
"What, leave? Me leave? Nothin' doin', sister. I'm too comfortable here," and he leaned back in the chair and laughed foolishly.
"What—what did you want to see Mr. DeVere about?" inquired Ruth, though she could well guess.
"I'll tell you what it's about," said Dan Merley, confidentially. "It's about money. I want five hundred dollars from your father, and I want it quick—with interest, too. Don't forget that."
"My father paid you that money!" Ruth declared, with boldness.
"He did not!" denied the unpleasant visitor. "He owes it to me yet, and I want it. And, what's more I'm going to have it!"
"That is unfair—unjust!" said Ruth, and there was a trace of tears in her voice. "My father paid you the money, and you promised to give him back the note—the paper that showed you had loaned it to him. But you never did."
"How do you know all this?" he asked.