, now, Haight. Since Scammon
volunteered to give the money back, and said he didn't know it
had been stolen, you can turn him loose."

The detective and Tip had no more than gone when Lawyer Ripley,
his face flushed with shame, wheeled about on his son.

"So you see, Fred, what your word of honor the word of a Ripley---is
sometimes worth. You have been robbing me steadily. How much
you have taken I do not know as I have not always counted or recorded
money that I put in the safe."

Fred's face had now taken on a defiant look. He saw that his
father did not intend to be harsh, so the boy determined to brave
it out.

"Haven't you anything to say?" asked the lawyer, after a brief
silence.

"No," retorted Fred, sulkily. "Not after you've disgraced me
by putting a private detective on my track. It was shameful."

That brought the hot blood rushing to his father's face.

"Shameful, was it, you young reprobate? Shameful to you, when
you have been stealing for weeks, if not for months? It is you
who are dead to the sense of shame. Your life, I fear, young
man, cannot go on as it has been going. You are not fitted for
a home of wealth and refinement. You have had too much money,
too easy a time. I see that, now. Well, it shall all change!
You shall have a different kind of home."

Fred began to quake. He knew that his father, when in a mood
like this, was not to be trifled with.

"You---you don't mean jail?" gasped the boy with a yellow streak
in him.

"No; I don't; at least, not this time," retorted his father.
"But, let me see. You spoke of an engagement to do something
this afternoon. What was it?"

"_I was_ to have pitched in the game against Cedarville High School."

"Go on, then, and do it," replied his father.

"I---I can't pitch, now. My nerves are too-----"

"Go on and do what you're pledged to do!" thundered Lawyer Ripley,
in a tone which Fred knew was not to be disregarded. So the boy
started for the door.

"And while you are gone," his father shot after him, "I will think
out my plan for changing your life in such a way as to save whatever
good may be in you, and to knock a lot of foolish, idle ideas
out of your head!"

Fred's cheeks were ashen, his legs shaking under him as he left
the house.

"I've never seen the guv'nor so worked up before---at least, not
about me," thought the boy wretchedly. "Now, what does he mean
to do? I can't turn him a hair's breadth, now, from w