"I'll stay where I am, Mr. Van Riper," said young Jacob, smiling again.
"I only came with a message from my father."

"With a what?" screamed Mr. Van Riper. "I can't have--oh, ay, a message!
Well, say it then and be off, like a sensible youngster. Consume it,
man, can't you talk farther out in the street?"

When Mr. Van Riper learned his visitor's message, he flung his stick on
the white pebbles of the clam-shell-bordered path, and swore that he,
Van Riper, was the only sane man in a city of lunatics, and that if
Jacob Dolph tried to carry out his plan he should be shipped
straightway to Bloomingdale.

But young Jacob had something of his father's patience, and, despite the
publicity of the interview, he contrived to make Mr. Van Riper
understand how matters stood. To tell the truth, Van Riper grew quite
sober and manageable when he realized that his extravagant imputation of
insanity was not so wide of the mark as it might have seemed, and that
there was a possibility that his old friend's mind might be growing
weak. He even ventured a little way down the path and permitted Jacob to
come to the gate while they discussed the situation.

"Poor old Dolph--poor old Jacob!" he groaned. "We must keep him out of
the hands of the sharks, that we must!" He did not see young Jacob's
irrepressible smile at this singular extension of metaphor. "He mustn't
be allowed to sell that house in open market--never, sir! Confound it,
I'll buy it myself before I'll see him fleeced!"

In the end he agreed, on certain strict conditions of precaution, to see
young Jacob the next day and discuss ways and means to save the
property.

"Come here, sir, at ten, and I'll see you in the sitting-room, and we'll
find out what we can do for your father--curse it, it makes me feel bad;
by gad, it does! Ten to-morrow, then--and come fumigated, young man,
don't you forget that--come fumigated, sir!"

It was Van Riper who bought the property at last. He paid eighteen
thousand dollars for it. This was much less than its value; but it was
more than any one else would have given just at that time, and it was
all that Van Riper could afford. The transaction weighed on the
purchaser's mind, however. He had bought the house solely out of
kindness, at some momentary inconvenience to himself; and yet it looked
as though he were taking advantage of his friend's weakness. Abram Van
Riper was a man who cultivated a clear conscience, of a plain,
old-fashioned