njoy this little visit with us," laughed Dexter,
changing his voice, which now sounded almost pleasant.

"I'd enjoy it a lot more," retorted Dick dryly, "if I had my chums here
with me."

"I, too, wish we had them here," nodded Dexter. "But they'd be tied up,
just as you are. You don't seem a bit curious as to why you're here."

"No," Dick admitted.

"Marvelous youth, in whom the instinct of curiosity is dead!"

"Whatever your game in bringing me here, I can guess that it's one that
wouldn't interest honest men."

"Oh, you're going to turn 'fresh,' are you?"

Dick did not reply. Dexter drew a cigar out from a vest pocket, as he
stood leaning against a decaying mantel, and lighted it. This imitation
of a man smoked in silence for a few moments, during which Prescott did
not offer to speak.

Going over to the table, and drawing a newspaper from one of his
pockets, Dexter sat down to read. He did not take off his coat, for the
room was chilly.

Dick did not move, nor did he offer to speak. In his present bad plight
he would have been glad enough to talk with anything living, even with
so despicable a human object as Ab. Dexter.

"But he'd only torment me, and try to scare me, too, probably," thought
Dick. "I won't give him any chance that I can help."

It was wholly natural that the boy's obstinate silence, which endured
for the next hour, should anger the man.

At last, after having consumed two cigars and read a lot of stuff in the
paper in which he was not interested, Dexter rose and stepped over to
the boy.

"Having pleasant thoughts, eh?" he demanded.

"Better than yours, I'm sure," retorted the boy dryly.

"Yes?"

"Yes; because my thoughts, at least, are clean and honest ones."

"Oh, you little saint!" jeered Ab.

"I'm hardly a saint, and am not sure that I'd care to be one. But at
least I'm happier and better off than a bigger fellow who'd be a big
scoundrel if he weren't too big a coward!"

"You mean that for me, do you?" snarled Dexter.

"You may have it if you like it!"

"You insolent little puppy!" snapped Ab., giving emphasis to his wrath
by kicking him.

"I see that I was wrong," said Prescott quietly. "I intimated that you
are a coward. I apologize. Only a brave man would kick a helpless boy."

The quiet irony of the speech made even Ab. Dexter flush.

"Well, I wasn't kicking a boy. I was kicking his freshness," explained
Dexter, in a harsh voice. "And I'll kick a lot more of th