“Then you’re squeezed a little down at your place, eh?”
“Oh, we can get along,” returned Roy hastily; “but we can’t do much branching out. My mother has only the income from father’s insurance, and then there’s the place which we own, with the taxes to pay.”
The old man now relapsed into silence. He seemed to be thinking, deeply. Suddenly he started up and exclaimed:
“It must be nearly time for Sydney to be here. Won’t you go outside and watch for him?”
Roy was very glad to leave the miser. He realized that perhaps it was wrong for him to feel that way, but then, believing him to be a little unbalanced, it was but natural that he should be sensible of some constraint in his presence.
“I wonder if he has got $500,000 put away somewhere?” he asked himself when he reached the little portico. “He talked exactly as if he was going to give it to me. I suppose for what I did for him on the bridge. That would be just like a story episode, so much like one that there’s no chance of its coming true. But what would Rex say if it did? Ah, here comes Syd.”
Roy left the porch and hurried out to the gate to meet the fellow who had been nearer and dearer to him than a brother as far back as he could remember.
“Poor old chap,” he said as they met and he turned around, slipping his arm within that of the tall young lawyer, “it was a shame to make you walk all that distance in the hot sun when you must be tired out from your day in town. But there’s a job at the end of the walk.”
“And a cheerful brother, too,” added the other. “Poor Rex! I saw him over at the station. He takes it terribly to heart that he cannot go off with the Bowmans. I wish I were rich, if only for you boys’ sakes. But what’s this heroic deed I hear of your doing for old Mr. Tyler? Positively, Roy, I’m proud of you.”
“Oh, the train didn’t come along for a good five minutes after I’d got him off the trestle. You see that takes a good deal of the ‘heroic rescue’ business out of the thing. But come on inside. He’s been quite anxious to see you. I’ve made him lie down, for I think he’s in a very bad way.”