"What's the matter with your aunt, Mary? She seems worried about something," he said, after the aunt with whom Mary was staying had come in, greeted Tom briefly, and gone out again.
"Oh, she and Uncle Jasper are worried over money matters, I believe," Mary said. "Uncle Jasper invested heavily in the Landmark Building here, and now, I understand, it is discovered that it was put up in violation of the building laws—something about not being fire-proof. Uncle Jasper is likely to lose considerable money.
"It isn't that it will make him so very poor," Mary went on. "But Uncle Barton Keith—you remember you went on the undersea search with him—Uncle Barton warned Uncle Jasper not to go into the Landmark Building scheme."
"And Uncle Jasper did, I take it," said Tom.
"Yes. And now he's sorry, for not only may he lose money, but Uncle Barton will laugh at him, and Uncle Jasper hates that worse than losing a lot. But tell me about yourself, Tom. What have you been doing? And is Eradicate going to get better?"
"I hope so," Tom said. "As for me—"
But he was interrupted by loud voices in the hall. He recognized the tones of Mary's Uncle Jasper saying:
"They're scoundrels, that's what they are! Just plain scoundrels! When I accuse them of swindling me and others in that Landmark Building deal they have the nerve to ask me to invest money in some secret dye formulae they claim will revolutionize the industry! Bah! They're scoundrels, that's what they are—Field and Melling are scoundrels, and I'm going to have them arrested!"