“Good, then I believe I’ll tell you, but you must promise you won’t use it in a book unless I tell you you can.”
“Here’s my hand on it,” and once more hands were clasped over the tree trunk.
“And you must promise, too, to believe everything I tell you. Some of it will seem pretty steep.”
“Oh, well, you know, that fact is stranger than fiction, so don’t worry about that.”
“I won’t tell you everything,” began Roy, with a quick glance up at the trestle, “but first I’ll have to go back a little and say that almost as far back as I can remember we’ve lived in that house you can see down yonder with the peaked roof. We had only about enough money to keep us comfortable, for father died when I was a little fellow, and there were five of us children. But we had good times and I was looking forward to the future when I would be a man and Rex and I—that’s my twin brother—could give mother some of the luxuries with what we should earn, for I expected that by that time Sydney would be married and have a home of his own. You’re not bored listening to all this, are you? There’s a more exciting part coming?”
“I never was so absorbed in a story in my life, my dear fellow. Go on, please.”
“Well, over yonder, not far from the end of the trestle, lived an old man—but never mind the name. At any rate he was sort of a miser, or rather he had lots of money which he never spent and when he died he left it all to my mother.”
“You’ve left something out I think,” interrupted Mr. Keeler, and there was a smile about the corners of his mouth that caused Roy to flush deeply.
CHAPTER XI
MR. CHARLES KEELER
“Well, why don’t you go on?” asked Mr. Keeler, as Roy paused.