"Me take good care, sahib," answered Tippoo reassuringly.
Matt and Carl, full of wonder and satisfaction because of the way the affair had ended, started back along the foot-path to the house.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
THE LUCK OF DICK FERRAL.
Mr. Lawton and Ferral met Matt and Carl in the parlor. They had been having a brief talk together, and there was a pleased look on Lawton's face and a happy light in Ferral's eyes.
Mr. Lawton stepped forward and caught Matt cordially by the hand.
"Matt," said he, "you have been a stanch friend of Dick's in the little time you have known him, and you have twice saved his life. He is indebted to you, but I am under an even greater obligation. But for your aid, the little plan I conceived for getting at the relative merits of my two nephews might have ended disastrously and given me something to regret till the last day of my life. I thank you, my lad; and you, too, Carl," he finished, turning to the grinning Dutch boy.
"Oh, vell," said Carl, "it don'd vas nodding vat I dit. Matt vas der vone. He iss alvays der vone dot geds dere mit bot' feets ven anyding iss bulled off."
"You both did nobly, and perhaps some time, somewhere, I can show you that I am not insensible of the debt I owe," went on Mr. Lawton. "Just now," he added, turning away and walking to the end of the mantel, "Dick has expressed a desire to see the place where I have lived for several days, and I presume you and Carl, Matt, are also interested."