"You'll teach me, will you, you villain," retorted Abner. "I'll teach you to come here like a thief."
"Let go," exclaimed the tramp, as he felt himself shaken roughly.
"Not till I've given you a good drubbing," returned Abner, and he began to use his cudgel with effect on the back and shoulders of the tramp. "You've come to the wrong house, you have."
Rudolph ground his teeth with ineffectual rage. He lamented that he had not a knife or pistol with him, but he had made so sure of easy entrance into the house, and no resistance, that he had not prepared himself. As to brute force, he was no match for Abner.
"The boy betrayed me!" he shrieked. "I'll have his life."
"Not much," said Abner. "You'll be lucky to get away with your own. It isn't the boy. I was awake, and heard you ask him to let you in. Now take yourself off."
As he said this he gave a powerful push, and Rudolph reeled a moment and sank upon the ground, striking his head with violence.
"He won't try it again," said Abner, as he shut to the door and bolted it. "I guess he's got enough for once."
Tony stood by, ashamed and mortified. He was afraid Abner would class him with the tramp who had just been ignominiously expelled from the house. He was afraid he, too, would be thrust out of doors, in which case he would be exposed to brutal treatment from Rudolph. But he did not need to fear this. Abner had seen and heard enough to feel convinced that Tony was all right in the matter, and he did not mean to make the innocent suffer for the guilty.
"Now let us go to bed, Tony," he said in a friendly manner. "You don't want to go with him, do you?"
"No," said Tony. "I never want to see him again."
"I shouldn't think you would. He's a rascal and a thief."
"I hope you don't think I wanted to rob the house," said Tony.
"No; I don't believe you're a bit like him; what makes you go with him?"
"That's strange," said Abner, who had seen but little of the world. Every one that he knew had a father, and knew who that father was. He could not realize that any one could have an experience like Tony's.
"I wish I did know my father," said Tony, thoughtfully. "I'm alone in the world now."
"I'll go off by myself to-morrow, away from Rudolph. I never want to see him again."
