--"

"Let me tell you," he interrupted, impatiently. "I'll tell you all about
it in two words. The process belonged to me, and your father up and
walked off with it; there's no getting around THAT much, anyhow."

"Isn't there?" Alice stared at him. "I think you're mistaken, Mr. Lamb.
Didn't papa improve it so that it virtually belonged to him?"

There was a spark in the old blue eyes at this. "What?" he cried. "Is
that the way he got around it? Why, in all my life I never heard of such
a----" But he left the sentence unfinished; the testiness went out of
his husky voice and the anger out of his eyes. "Well, I expect maybe
that was the way of it," he said. "Anyhow, it's right for you to stand
up for your father; and if you think he had a right to it----"

"But he did!" she cried.

"I expect so," the old man returned, pacifically. "I expect so,
probably. Anyhow, it's a question that's neither here nor there, right
now. What I was thinking of saying--well, did your father happen to let
out that he and I had words this morning?"

"No."

"Well, we did." He sighed and shook his head. "Your father--well, he
used some pretty hard expressions toward me, young lady. They weren't
SO, I'm glad to say, but he used 'em to me, and the worst of it was he
believed 'em. Well, I been thinking it over, and I thought I'd just have
a kind of little talk with you to set matters straight, so to speak."

"Yes, Mr. Lamb."

"For instance," he said, "it's like this. Now, I hope you won't think I
mean any indelicacy, but you take your brother's case, since we got to
mention it, why, your father had the whole thing worked out in his mind
about as wrong as anybody ever got anything. If I'd acted the way your
father thought I did about that, why, somebody just ought to take me out
and shoot me! Do YOU know what that man thought?"

"I'm not sure."

He frowned at her, and asked, "Well, what do you think about it?"

"I don't know," she said. "I don't believe I think anything at all about
anything to-day."

"Well, well," he returned; "I expect not; I expect not. You kind of look
to me as if you ought to be in bed yourself, young lady."

"Oh, no."

"I guess you mean 'Oh, yes'; and I won't keep you long, but there's
something we got to get fixed up, and I'd rather talk to you than I
would to your mother, because you're a smart girl and always friendly;
and I want to be sure I'm understood. Now, listen."

"I will," Alice promised, smiling