CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW THE OTHER WAS RECEIVED.

“By the piper that played before Moses!” exclaimed the telegraph operator at Bolton, when he had received and copied a message that had come over the wires all the way from some little place buried in the wilds of Arizona. “If that old villain, Bob Howard, hasn’t struck it rich this time, I _am_ beat!”

Here the operator read the message over again to make sure that he had made no mistake in copying it, shaking his head and sighing deeply all the while, and then he put it into an envelope, which he handed over to a messenger boy who happened to enter the office at that moment.

“Wonders will never cease!” he added, as he walked up and down the office, with his hands buried deep in his pockets; “but this is a little ahead of anything I ever heard of, and it doesn’t seem possible. ‘And the whole of your deceased brother’s property, roughly estimated at—’ Whew! I wouldn’t give much for it by the time old Bob and that scapegrace son of his get through handling it. I guess that man out in Arizona couldn’t have known his brother as well as we in Bolton know him. I pity that nephew, whoever he is.”

The messenger boy readily found his way to the little cottage in that obscure street, of which we spoke in the last chapter, and there, as we have seen, he found the man for whom it was intended.

“G. H. Evans,” said Uncle Bob, slowly reading the name that was signed to the dispatch. “Who is he?”

“Why, it is from Arizona!” exclaimed Arthur, who was looking over Uncle Bob’s shoulder. “Listen to this: ‘Your brother, Eben Howard, died very suddenly this morning.’ Humph!” he ejaculated, walking back to his seat with an air of disgust. “They probably expect you to send money to bear his funeral expenses; but, if I were you, I would see them—Why, father, what is the matter?”

It was no wonder that Arthur asked this question, and asked it, too, in a tone of anxiety, for Uncle Bob suddenly grew as pale as a ghost, and all the while keeping his eyes fastened upon the telegram which he held at arm’s length before him.

The astonished Arthur spoke to him several times, but finding that no attention was paid to him, he jumped up and snatched the telegram. Pushing back his father, who, scarcely realizing what he was doing, tried, in a feeble way, to regain possession of the paper, Arthur read as follows:

“Your brother, Eben Howard, died very suddenly this morning. By the terms of his will, which, in accordance with his dying request, was opened at once, I find that you are appointed guardian of your nephew, Robert Howard, and that the whole of your deceased brother’s property, roughly estimated at four millions of dollars is willed to you—”

Arthur gasped for breath and reeled heavily against the wall, but he quickly recovered himself and read on a few words further:

“—is willed to you, to be held in trust until the said Robert Howard is twenty-one years old, when it is to be given up to him—”

Something that sounded very much like an imprecation escaped from Arthur’s lips when he came to this part of the message. His hopes were crushed to the ground in an instant, but he managed to go on with the reading:

“—less a generous sum, which you are at liberty to retain, for the faithful performance of your duties as guardian and trustee. As Mr. Howard’s intimate friend and confidential adviser, I shall be glad to give you every assistance in my power. Telegraph me from Leavenworth when to meet you at the station.”

When Arthur had finished the telegram, he threw it on the floor and stamped upon it, in his rage.

“What fools we are!” said he, in a voice that was rendered almost indistinct by intense passion. “Look here, old man! If you haven’t taken leave of your senses, sit down and tell me why it is that you are so worked up over this dispatch. Can’t you see that these four millions will never do us any good? They are not yours to keep. They are only willed to you ‘in trust,’ and must be given up to Bob as soon as he becomes of age. Who ever heard of such miserable luck?”

These words seemed to call Uncle Bob back to earth, and he instantly became himself again—cool, level-headed and calculating. “This accident and flood of fortune” had upset him for the moment, but now he was able to think about it and to gloat over it without the display of any emotion whatever.

“I know that I am to hold the property in trust. But don’t you see that I am to be Bob’s guardian? that I am to have the management of all these millions, and the revenues that may accrue from them?” said Uncle Bob, spreading his hands over the table, as if he were in reality, as he was in imagination, fingering his nephew’s big pile of gold and silver.

“How old is Bob now?” asked Arthur.

“About eighteen, I think.”

“Then we shall be rich for three years?”

“Yes, and a great deal can be accomplished in that time,” said his father, in a meaning tone. “Besides, there is the ‘generous sum’ which I shall keep to pay me for my services.”

“What would you call a generous sum?”

“Well, taking into consideration the amount of property involved, and the harassing responsibilities that will probably be thrown upon me, I should say half a million.”

“Hurrah for us!” shouted Arthur, “That will put us above some people who now look down on us because we can’t show as much style as they do, and if I don’t—Say, father, you are not going to live out there in that wild region, are you?”

“I don’t see how I can help it. I must look after Bob’s interests, you know.”

“Can’t you hire an agent, and let him look out for them?”

“I suppose I could; but I don’t want to,” said Uncle Bob, who had already determined upon the course he intended to pursue. “I can please myself better.”

“Must I live out there, too?” inquired Arthur.

“For a while, yes. Where do you want to go?”

“I want to stay right here, and take satisfaction out of some of these people who think themselves better than I am.”

“It is getting quite fashionable now for young men of means to go to college,” observed Uncle Bob.

“How much does it cost?”

“That depends upon the depth of one’s pocket. In your case I should say that fifteen or twenty thousand dollars would be a sufficient sum. Of course you would want to go among the best of the students, and it would take money, and plenty of it, to enable you to do that.”

“Well, no college for me, if you please!” declined Arthur. “I’ve done my last day’s work at books or anything else. Give me the money, and I will spend it in a way that will bring me some satisfaction. I will have a top-buggy and a span of steppers so fine that Coal Oil Tom’s will bear no comparison to them. How soon can we get ready to start?”

“By to-morrow night,” replied Uncle Bob, promptly. “All I’ve got to do is to put our little property here into the hands of an agent, with orders to do the best he can with it, and then we will pack our trunks and be off. Of course I can’t stay to attend to the sale myself.”

“Of course not,” said Arthur, looking about the poorly-furnished room with an expression of contempt in his face. “If you can’t sell the place, give it away. You don’t need it any longer, and it isn’t worth much anyway.”

If Uncle Bob had received an offer for his house and lot an hour before, he would have demanded more, and held out for the last half-dollar that he could have induced the purchaser to pay. But he felt differently now. He was as highly elated as Arthur was over his unexpected fortune, although he did not show it so plainly, and the money his property would probably bring him, if it were thrown upon the market, seemed a mere bagatelle in his eyes.

“By-the-way,” said Arthur suddenly, “if anything should happen to Bob, who would inherit this property?”

“Being next of kin, it ought to come to me,” replied his father—“provided there are no legal obstacles in the way,” he added, as Arthur began dancing a jig in the middle of the floor. “My brother may have provided for that; but if he did not, or if Bob, after becoming of age and taking possession of the property, should die without making a will, my right to inherit would be clear and indisputable.”

“I declare, it almost takes my breath away to think of it!” said Arthur, whose delight and excitement would not allow him to keep still for a moment. “I don’t feel as I did when I came into this house a little while ago, I tell you. I guess I’ll go out and get a cigar.”

“Supper will soon be ready,” said his father.

“I don’t want any supper, and I shouldn’t think you would either. How you can sit there and take it so coolly, passes my comprehension. If I didn’t stir about I should go all to pieces.”

Arthur went into his room long enough to draw on a pair of kid gloves, which never saw the light except upon extra occasions, and to put under his arm the slender little cane he was accustomed to carry on his Sunday promenades, and then he went out to get his cigar.

He seemed to be treading on air, so buoyant were his spirits. He carried himself very stiffly, looking neither to the right nor left of him; and, to quote from an acquaintance he passed on the street, but whom he did not deign to notice, one would have thought by the frills he put on that he was worth at least a dollar and a half.

Contrary to his usual custom, Arthur took his way down Crosby Street, on which were located nearly all the fine residences the town could boast of, and where the gay croquet and lawn-tennis parties, some of whose members he had so often envied, were to be seen every pleasant afternoon. These parties were out in full force, but Arthur never looked toward them as he passed.

“What do I care for such people as they are?” said he to himself. “My father will soon be handling more money than they are all worth, and the allowance I know he will give me will enable me to outshine any fellow on these grounds. I wish they knew of the luck that has befallen me since I passed along this way an hour ago. I have but a short time to stay in Bolton, and before I go, I want to have the gratification of knowing that somebody envies me. Ah, here comes Wiggins! I will tell him, and that will be as good as though I posted it on the door of the town hall.”

Wiggins was one of the errand boys in the store in which Arthur had formerly found employment. He had by this time learned that the clerk had been discharged, and he had lost no opportunity to spread the news.

He was full of gossip, and if there was anything going on in the town he was pretty sure to know it, and to tell it, too.