“Wal, I’m goin’ ter be yer guardeen—right off,” Arad hastened to inform him, before the “square” could reply. “The square’s goin’ ter make the papers aout ter oncet.”
“They’ll be funny looking documents, I reckon,” said Don, in disgust. “I understand that Mr. Holt has done several pretty crooked things since he’s been in office, but this is going a little too far.”
“Young man!” cried the judge, trying to wither the audacious youth with a glance.
But Don didn’t “wither” at all.
“If you know anything at all about law,” he said to the judge, with sarcasm, “you know that a guardian can’t be appointed in an hour. Legal notice must be given and reason shown why a guardian should be appointed. I’ve no property, and Uncle Arad only wants to control me so as to have my work. And, besides all that, I am old enough to choose my own guardian, and you can bet your last cent that I shouldn’t choose Arad Tarr.”
“It ain’t so! ’tain’t no sich thing, is it, square?” cried old Arad, in alarm. “Ain’t I th’ proper person to be ’p’inted over my own nevvy? Ther’ ain’t nobody else got anythin’ ter do with it.”
“He can tell you what he likes,” responded Brandon quickly; “but I’ve given you the facts. Now I’ve heard enough of this, and I’m going to bed.” Then he added, turning to Holt: “When you go out to fleece a lamb next time, Mr. Holt, be pretty sure that the lamb is just as innocent as you think it.”
He turned away without another word then and left the kitchen, mounting to his bedroom in the second story of the old house, leaving the baffled conspirators in a state of wrathful bewilderment.
CHAPTER IX
ANOTHER LETTER FROM NEW YORK
“Mr. Tarr,” declared the judge, when Brandon had, for the moment, so successfully routed them and retired, “you are doing a very wrong thing in shielding that young reprobate from the reform school. That’s where he belongs. Send him there, sir, send him there!”