“Neither would I. It’s strange to me, though, Dave, that your father ever made such a notorious old skinflint your guardian.”
“He didn’t,” asserted Dave.
“Who did, then?”
“The court, and I had no voice in it. Mr. Warner let me stay at the school I was attending when my father died, for about a year. Then he claimed the estate couldn’t bear the expense, and he has had me home ever since.”
“Why don’t they sell the old hotel, and give you a chance to live like other boys who are heirs?” demanded Ned, in his ardent, innocent way.
“Mr. Warner says the property can’t be sold till I am of age,” explained Dave. “That time I went away and got work in the city, I even sent Mr. Warner half of what I earned, but he sent the sheriff after me, made me come home, and said if I tried it again he would send me to a reformatory till I was twenty-one.”
“Say that’s terrible!” cried Ned, rousing up in his honest wrath. “Oh, say—look there!”
“Whoa!” shouted Dave, but there was no need of the mandate. In sudden excitement and surprise he had pulled old Dobbin up dead short. Then he followed the direction indicated by the pointing finger of his companion. Both sat staring fixedly over their heads. The air was filled with a faint whizzing sound, and the object that made it came within their view for just a minute. Then it passed swiftly beyond their range of vision where the high trees lining the road intervened.
“An airship—a real airship!” cried Ned with bated breath.
“Yes. It must have come from the big aero meet at Fairfield,” said Dave.