"What are you going to do, Dick?" asked Mr. Hamilton as he saw his son preparing to write a letter.
"I'm going to tell Mr. Wardell that there's a chance to save his fortune, and I'm going to offer my services to do it for him!" was the quick answer. "I want to have a talk with him."
"Mortimer!" exclaimed a voice in the hall, "I can't sleep with the howling of that pesky bulldog. I shall have to ask you to have him taken farther off."
"Great Peter!" gasped Dick. "Uncle Ezra!"
The tableau which presented itself to the view of Mr. Larabee showed Mr. Hamilton gazing at Dick, and our hero, with a strange expression on his face, looking at his father. He was wondering just how much his uncle had overheard.
"Can't sleep; eh?" repeated Mr. Hamilton, after a pause.
"No, that dog of Nephew Richard's makes such a noise. Can't he be sent farther off?"
"I--I'll have Grit taken away, Uncle Ezra," promised Dick, quickly. "I'll attend to it right away. I'm sorry he annoyed you."
"Huh!" snorted the visitor. "I never could see the use of dogs, anyhow. They eat 'most as much as humans, and never do any work."
"They keep tramps away," said Dick, in defense of his pet.
"Huh! A good shotgun near the door, where a tramp can see it, beats all your dogs, and it don't cost anythin' either," declared Mr. Larabee, with a sniff of disdain. "One charge of powder--not too much--and a little salt and pepper, will do for a whole season of tramps. You don't have to shoot the gun off, you know," he explained. "Sometimes one load will do for several seasons, and think of the money you save."
"I'd rather have Grit," said Dick, simply.
"Sittin' up rather late; aren't you, Mortimer?" went on Mr. Larabee, who was attired in a faded dressing gown, rather too short for him. It showed his lean legs, the feet encased in ancient slippers, which, Uncle Ezra boasted, had lasted him many years.
"I seldom go to bed early," spoke the millionaire.
"But it's late for Nephew Richard," went on the old man. "Growin' boys should be a-bed early. When I was a lad we went to bed soon after sundown--we had to, for we had to git up at four o'clock to milk. But the present generation has it too easy--they're pampered too much."
"Dick and I were talking business," said Mr. Hamilton, and he glanced sharply at his brother-in-law, to see if he had overheard any of the conversation. If Mr. Larabee had done so, he showed no signs of it.