"Where's Welcome?" asked Matt.
A slow grin worked its way over Chub's freckled face.
"He's out in his study, soothin' his turbulent soul with hair-raisin' literature."
"Didn't know he had a study," said Matt.
Chub jerked a thumb over his shoulder at a neighboring barn.
"It's over there," said he. "Perk's got a box stall all to himself, an' his library contains everything about Dick Turpin that was ever written. Come on over an' we'll take a look at him."
Matt was glad of something that would take his mind off Rags for a time, and he followed Chub toward the barn. Approaching softly, Chub placed an empty box under a square opening that ventilated one of the stalls and motioned for Matt to get up beside him.
Some shelves had been put up along one side of the stall, and they were piled with a lot of grimy-looking books. One of the books lay open on a board placed over the manger, and Welcome stood in front of it with an old butcher-knife in his hand. The old man had twisted up the ends of his mustache to make it look bristling and fierce, and he was mumbling to himself and flashing the butcher-knife around him savagely.
"Le'me see," the boys heard him mutter, as he bent over the book, "how does that there go? Dad-bing! I wisht I had my glasses. The print's purty fine an' the light ain't none too good."
Then he read, tracing the words with the point of the knife.