CHAPTER XIX.

BOB HEARS SOME STARTLING NEWS.

“Hallo, Art!” exclaimed the errand-boy, as soon as he came within speaking distance. “Got the sack, didn’t you? You’re out looking for another job, ain’t you?”

“Look here, young man,” said Arthur, with some dignity in his tones, “you are quite too familiar, if you did but know it. It would be becoming in you to show some respect for your betters.”

“Hallo! What’s come over you all at once?” cried Wiggins.

“It is true that I have left the store,” continued Arthur, without replying to this question; “but I am not looking for another situation. I don’t have to.”

“What are you going to live on—the interest of your debts?”

“I am going to live on the interest of my money,” answered Arthur, loftily. “By the death of a relative who lived out West, my father and I have come into possession of a very nice little fortune.”

“How much?” asked Wiggins, incredulously.

“About four millions.”

“Aw! Get out!”

“I didn’t expect you to believe it, but those are the figures. So you will readily see that I am not obliged to earn my living by standing behind the counter. I’ve given him something to talk about,” soliloquized Arthur, as he walked away with a slow and dignified step, “and in half an hour the news will be all over town.”

Having provided himself with a cigar, Arthur took a long walk toward the outskirts of the town, in order to give the errand-boy time to “get in his work,” as he expressed it.

And he was not a little flattered by the attention he received when he came back.

Wiggins must have labored industriously, for everybody seemed to have heard the news. People who had seldom taken the trouble to speak to him when he was nothing but a dry-goods clerk, stopped to congratulate him on his good fortune; and among those who were the most cordial in their greeting was the tailor to whom he was indebted for the clothes he had on his back; the cigar-vender who had been confiding enough to furnish him with his Havanas; and the jeweller, who had not yet been paid for the seal-ring that adorned the third finger of his left hand.

“I tell you, money makes a big difference in the position one occupies in the world and in the estimation of those around him,” said Arthur, as he bent his steps towards his cheerless home, after spending an hour in airing himself on the principal streets. “But didn’t I snub some of those fellows in fine style? I wish I could stay here, so that I could snub them every day.”

Time seemed to move on leaden wings, but the night and the ensuing day wore away at last, and, long before the hour for starting arrived, Arthur had packed his valise and was ready for the train.

From some hidden source, Uncle Bob had produced money enough to purchase tickets, and furnish himself and his hopeful son with brand new travelling outfits and a few articles of comfort and utility, and, when they took their seats in the drawing-room car, they were quite prepared to create a sensation among the passengers they found there. But to Arthur’s disappointment, the passengers at whom he gazed through his gold eye-glasses—he needed eye-glasses about as much as he needed another ring—were not at all impressed by his fine clothes and the graceful attitudes he assumed.

They had papers and books to read, and matters of their own to think about, and some of them never once looked at him.

The only one in the car who paid any particular attention to him was a handsome, dark-haired youth, who all that day had ridden with his arms folded and his chin resting on his breast. He looked up when Arthur and his father entered, gave a start of surprise, and said, in a whisper, to his travelling companion:

“That’s my Uncle Bob—if I ever saw him.”

“And a very fine-looking old fellow he is, too,” said the other, who would hardly have recognized in this pompous gentleman—who gazed about him as if he were monarch of all he surveyed—the Uncle Bob whom we introduced a short time ago. That fine feathers make fine birds was fully exemplified in his case. “Who is that young chap with him—your cousin Arthur?”

“I think so,” replied Bob Howard—for it was he—“but I’m not sure. A good many years have passed since I last saw them, and Arthur has had plenty of time to grow out of my recollection, but Uncle Bob hasn’t changed at all.”

“What are they doing on this train, I wonder?” asked George Edwards.

“I’m sure I don’t know. Say, George, I didn’t write to Uncle Bob about my father’s death, as I meant to do, and perhaps I’d better speak to him about it now, while I have the chance. Then I shall be done with him forever.”

“Well, if it is an unpleasant piece of business, go about it at once, and have it off your mind,” suggested George.

“It _is_ unpleasant, for I don’t want to speak to the man who went deliberately to work to ruin my father,” said Bob, with no little bitterness in his tones. “But I will do as you say. I suppose I shall have to address him as ‘Uncle Bob,’ but I assure you I never would do it if my father had not always spoken of him in that way in his letters.”

So saying, Bob arose and walked over to the seats that were occupied by his relatives. They looked up in surprise when the boy stopped before them, Arthur assuming a haughty stare, while his father seemed trying to remember where he had seen Bob before.

“Pardon me,” said the latter. “Do I address Mr. Robert Howard, of Bolton, Indiana?”

“Bless my soul!” cried Uncle Bob, jumping to his feet and shaking his nephew’s hand with both his own. “I thought I knew you—and you are my brother’s son, who was named after me, are you not? Arthur, this is the cousin, of whom you have so often heard me speak. Shake hands and be friends.”

The two boys did not greet each other with the cordiality that might have been expected of relatives who had long been separated. Each knew instinctively that the other was an enemy to him. Uncle Bob saw this very plainly, and he knew that much depended on securing his nephew’s good-will; but he went about it in the very best way calculated to excite his contempt.

“Sit down, Bob,” said he, taking the boy by the shoulders and trying to push him into the chair he had just vacated; “sit down, and let us have a family talk. Do you know that it is a long time since Arthur and I have seen you? How you have grown, and how well you are looking! You are getting to be quite a spruce young gentleman.”

“Thank you; I’ll not sit down,” said Bob, coldly. “I have a seat of my own in this car. I simply came here to tell you that my father was dead.”

Uncle Bob drew on a long face at once, and Arthur tried to do the same, but made a failure of it.

“Sad—very sad!” said the former. “I was greatly shocked to hear it. Very sudden, was it not?”

“Have you heard of it?” asked Bob in surprise.

“Certainly I have; and I am now on my way to Arizona to settle up his affairs. I know it is very hard, my dear boy; but try to bear up, and not look so depressed.”

Bob didn’t look depressed—he looked astonished and bewildered.

What business had this man, who had tried to swindle his father and cast dishonor upon his name, to have anything to do with money and property that would one day belong to himself?

“There—there surely must be some mistake,” he stammered.

“There’s no mistake whatever,” said Arthur, glibly. “We’ve got it in black and white.”

His father silenced him with a frown, and continued, as he thrust his hand into his breast-pocket and drew out a note-book:

“I don’t wonder that you are a little surprised. I was surprised myself; but what Arthur says is quite true. My brother having every confidence in my fidelity” (Uncle Bob put a good deal of unnecessary emphasis into these words), “appointed me to act as your guardian, and to hold your property in trust for you, until you are able to take care of it yourself. The responsibility is great, but I have cheerfully accepted it. I assure you—although it is hardly necessary—that I shall do all I can to make our intercourse as guardian and ward pleasant and agreeable, and I know you will do the same. Here’s the paper I want. Read that, and you will know as much about the matter as I know myself.”

Bob was thunderstruck. His mind was in such confusion that he did not understand half a dozen words of this long and carefully-prepared speech. All he heard was that his uncle was his guardian, and that fairly stunned him. Was his father crazy, when he made his will? He must have been, or he never would have done this.

He took the telegraph dispatch that Uncle Bob handed him, and, having made himself master of its contents, he passed it back without saying a word and returned to his own seat.

Uncle Bob looked after him with an expression on his face that cannot be described, and then buttoning his ulster with great deliberation, he settled back in his luxurious chair with an air which seemed to say:

“Help yourself, if you can, young man.”

He drew a long breath as if he felt relieved, and yet his face wore a look of anxiety. He saw that his ward was a boy of spirit—any one who looked into Bob Howard’s eyes could see that—and told himself that he was bound to have trouble with him sooner or later.

Arthur must have been of the same opinion; for, after waiting a long time for his father to speak, he broke in upon his reverie by saying:

“That boy is altogether too independent to suit me. I shall have to bring him down a peg or two.”

“You had better mind your own business and let him alone,” said Uncle Bob, roughly, “My position will be hard enough at the best, and if you expect me to be liberal with you, you must be careful to do nothing to increase the weight of the burden I shall have to bear.”

Arthur opened his eyes when he heard this, and relapsed into silence. He had made up his mind that he was going to do pretty near what he pleased with his cousin and everything that belonged to him; but now he saw that he would have to defer to his father in some things, or run the risk of having his allowance of spending money curtailed.

There had been no conversation between them regarding the amount of that allowance, but Arthur took it for granted that it was to be a liberal one.

The face that Bob Howard brought back to his companion surprised and alarmed the latter, who knew, as soon as he looked at it, that something unpleasant had happened.

He was not kept long in ignorance, for Bob, feeling the need of sympathy, made all haste to unburden his mind.

George listened in astonishment while his friend told what had passed between him and Uncle Bob; but when his story was finished there was nothing he could say to comfort him.

“It seems that the same name is signed to both the dispatches,” he ventured to remark, when he saw that Bob was waiting for him to speak. “Do you know the man?”

Yes, Bob knew him well. He was their nearest neighbor, and the first friend they made when they settled in Arizona.

“Then he is the one you want to talk to,” said George. “No doubt he will be able to explain everything to your entire satisfaction.”

“No, he can’t,” said Bob, bitterly. “He can’t make me understand why my father gave his property into this man’s keeping, and made him my guardian. That’s a mystery that I shall never be able to see into.”

“Well, this Mr. Evans can tell you more about it than anybody else, can’t he?” said George, encouragingly. “You can’t gain any more insight into the matter until you see him, can you? Then all you’ve got to do is to wait patiently until we reach the end of our journey, when everything will be made clear to you.”

It was very easy for George to give this advice; but it was by no means so easy for Bob to follow it. Besides, the latter did not believe that it lay in Mr. Evans’ power to make everything clear to him.