Chapter 8

Uncle Ellis Seeks Advice.

Clyde stole down the stairs carefully and listened at the head of the flight leading from the hall. As he had suspected, Uncle Ellis was going out. He had just taken his hat from the rack and was walking toward the door.

Clyde waited until his uncle had reached the street, and then followed. The bright moon had gone behind a bank of clouds, but from the piazza he could make out his uncle's form moving slowly up the street.

The house faced on the avenue running at right angles to the water. It was situated midway between two streets which crossed it and ran through the heart of the town, but a short distance away.

One of these streets Mr. Ellis turned into, and Clyde quickly took the other one. He could move faster than his uncle, and by hurrying he could reach the main street ahead of him.

This he did, and was awaiting his uncle behind a door not far from the post office.

The post office was in a small building and occupied the lower floor. A stairway next to the office ran to the second floor, and opening from the hallway above was a small room, in which Mr. Lycurgus Sharp had his office. There was a balcony in front of the lawyer's office.

Mr. Lycurgus Sharp was hanging about the post office, talking politics, when Mr. Ellis reached that point.

Clyde was firmly convinced that his worthy uncle and the lawyer would be in consultation before long, and he was also convinced that the topic of conversation would be the ten thousand dollars. He was even more firmly convinced that he was right when the two men came out of the post office and walked up the stairs to the lawyer's room above.

Clyde did not like the idea of playing the spy, but if his uncle was engaged in a scheme to rob him, he certainly had a right to know it, and, with no twinges of conscience, he stole up the stairs, and when all was quiet he crawled out upon the balcony.

The night was hot, and Mr. Sharp's window was partially raised, but protected by a blind.

"Those confounded boys have discovered everything," Clyde heard his uncle say. "I would like to know how they did it. You haven't been talking, have you?"

"What! _Me_ talk? _Me_, did you say?" exclaimed Mr. Lycurgus Sharp, dramatically.

"Then how did they find out that I have been speculating?" demanded the other, sharply.

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.

"That's your lookout," he said, carelessly. "Perhaps they overheard us talking this afternoon."

"Great Scott! I hope not," cried Mr. Ellis, excitedly. "No, I don't believe that! No one was around at the time. I think they must have heard a rumor somewhere--where, I don't know, but would give a heap to find out. If those boys get a notion like that they will spread it everywhere, and I shall be ruined. What can I do to stop them off?"

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders again.

"I have promised to show them the will and explain where all the money is," added Mr. Ellis.

"Which you can't do," broke in the lawyer, abruptly.

"Which is only a blind to gain time," the other frowned. "I am sorry I ever got into this speculation now; but I am in it, and I have got to make that money good, somehow. I can do it in time, I am sure; but if these boys get to talking, I can't tell what will happen."

"Well," said Mr. Sharp, "I suppose you must get rid of them for a time. That is about what you are driving at, I apprehend?"

"That's about the size of it, but how?"

Mr. Sharp picked up a newspaper that was lying on his table and turned to the shipping advertisements.

"I see here," he said, "the advertisement of a vessel to sail to-morrow for Australia."

"What of that?"

"What of that! Why, everything of that. Can't you see through a barn-door, when the door is open for you?"

"You mean, send the boys to Australia?"

The lawyer nodded.

"Could you want anything better? They would be gone a long time. You can take them to New York to-morrow and ship them off in the afternoon. Put them before the mast. Make sailors out of them."

"Nobody would take them for sailors," remarked Mr. Ellis, doubtfully.

"What of that? Go to the captain and tell him that you have two boys who are wild. Tell him you don't want to send them to the reform school, but would like to have them put under the discipline of a big ship. Pay him to take them, and he will jump at the chance, and break them in for you, I'll warrant."

Clyde's cheeks burned with resentment. His heart was going like a trip-hammer. Could it be possible that his uncle would lend himself to such a villainous scheme? He could scarcely refrain from jumping through the window and denouncing the plotters to their very faces.

He did not have to wait long to discover his uncle's sentiments.

"Sharp," said Mr. Ellis, "you have a great head. I do admire you, upon my word! If I had one-half of your ability for villainy, I would have been rich long ago."

"Thank you," retorted the lawyer, coolly. "But you can bet that I never used other people's money to speculate with."

"The less said about that the better," replied the other. "I shall pull out of this all right if I am given time. But now to business. How am I going to get those boys aboard? They may suspect something."

"Oh, well, if you haven't got any inventive faculty at all, you had better quit, go down on your knees, ask your nephews' pardon, and live happily ever after. To tell you plainly, that is just what I would do. But if you are dead set on getting rid of them, why, I am paid to give you advice, and here it is. You have promised to show them the will to-morrow. Tell them that it is necessary to go to New York to see it. There you can take them to some office for a blind, and, while you are there, you can have a letter sent to you, or pretend to have, from an old friend who is going to Australia and wants you to see him off. It will be the easiest thing in the world to ask the boys to accompany you, and, once aboard, you can lock them up, and there they are."

"That's the talk. They shall be there," exclaimed the delighted speculator.

"Only they won't," thought Clyde, from his perch in front of the window.

"Look here," said Mr. Ellis, nervously. "Since this thing has begun, I am suspicious of everything. No one could have heard us, could they?"

"The door is shut, as you see," replied the lawyer, "and I don't think anybody saw us come up here."

"The window is open," suggested Mr. Ellis.

He got up from his chair and walked to the door.

Clyde saw him open it and leave it open, then turn to the window as if he meant to do the same thing with it.

The boy was in a trap. It would never do to be caught there. To think with him was to act. He stepped over the balcony and hung from the floor by his hands. There was no one on the sidewalk beneath, and, letting go, he dropped lightly to the ground, just as his uncle stepped out upon the balcony above.

He pulled himself into a shadow and stood motionless.

Mr. Ellis was apparently suspicions. Perhaps he had heard something. At all events, he looked down and up and in all directions without becoming any wiser for it.

The moment his head disappeared from sight, Clyde stole away. He was hot with excitement and anger.