“It has always seemed to me,” said Chot, “that Luther Pendleton was not the sort of man to be the father of a fine girl like Lucy. I heartily wish he was not her father, for you must realize that regard for her would hold us back in this matter, when otherwise we would be inclined to see Pendleton severely punished.”
“It is for Lucy’s sake that I have never quite expressed my sentiments with regard to her father,” said Tom.
The boys finally separated for the night, Fleet going home with his father, and Tom to his attic den where he had a comfortable bed.
Chot sat up late, writing first to Commandant Cullum about Hoki, and then to Lucy. He went into considerable detail in the latter, asking Lucy if she would transfer the stock to Fleet for a sum to be agreed upon.
He mailed the letters in the morning.
CHAPTER XXV—CONCLUSION
For the next few days Fleet kept away from his chums for the greater part of the time, and when they pressed him to know how he was occupying his time, he merely winked, and said:
“Wait and see.”
Hour after hour he spent in his den, the door locked, and the only way they could communicate with him at such a time was by means of a telephone, and then his answers were sometimes short.
“I’m awfully busy,” he said one day to Chot, when his chum rang him up and asked him to go swimming in the creek. “Sorry, but I’ll have to ring off.”