A BRILLIANT SCHEME MADE POSSIBLE.
Dory began to think his companion was a lunatic. Certainly he was a Christian man, for he seemed to have nothing but kindness in his heart towards his late assailant.
"I don't want any pay for what I did for either," said Dory Dornwood, as he saw his companion thrust his hand into his pocket, and he feared that his joke had been taken in earnest.
"We will talk about that when we get to Plattsburgh. Will you tell me your name, young man?"
"My name is Theodore Dornwood, though almost everybody calls me Dory. But I don't care what they call me, if they don't call me too late to supper, or don't call me at all, as nobody did to-night," replied Dory. And an emphatic wrenching at his stomach, just at the moment he spoke, compelled him to repeat that ancient witticism.
"You have had no supper, Dory?" demanded his new friend, with much sympathy in his tones.
"Not a bit, and not much dinner," added Dory. "Major Billcord spoiled my dinner. And I dare say he charges me with spoiling his dinner: but I didn't; it was the cook."
The curiosity of his companion was excited, and Dory told the whole story of his experience as a waiter at dinner that day. In answering the questions of the stranger, he told the history of himself and his family. He enlarged upon his efforts to obtain a situation, and declared that he wanted to do something to help his mother, and make things easier for her.
Just as he was finishing his narrative, they reached the front of a farmhouse. The stranger led the way to the door, and knocked. Presently the door was opened by a man with a lamp in his hand. Dory wondered what his companion wanted there; for he had not spoken of making a call on the way to the town.
"Ah! is that you, Basil Hawlinshed?" said the occupant of the house, as the light from his lamp fell upon the face of the stranger,—a stranger to Dory, though he did not appear to be such to the man of the house. "I am glad to see you. Come in!"