It was Randolph who got the idea, one day when he was sitting on the plow handle lighting his pipe.
"Wot's the matter with us gettin' out Fred for our farm pupil? He's got some money—they say he married a rich man's daughter—and we've got the experience!"
"He's only a 'alf-brother!" said Reginald, at last, reflectively.
"That don't matter one bit to me," declared Randolph, generously, "I'll treat him just the same as I would you!"
Reginald shrugged his shoulders eloquently.
"What about his missus?" asked Reginald, after a silence.
"She can come," Randolph said, magnanimously. "We'll build a piece to the house."
The more they talked about it the more enthusiastic they became. Under the glow of this new project they felt they could hurl contempt on Aunt Patience and her unnatural hold on life.
"I don't know but what I would rather take 'elp from the livin' than the dead, anyway," Reginald said, virtuously, that night before they went to bed.
"They're more h'apt to ask it back, just the same," objected Randolph.