t time as
equals, without reservations, as man to man.

CHAPTER XVIII

The next morning Albert met old Mr. Kendall. After breakfast Captain
Zelotes had gone, as usual, directly to the office. His grandson,
however, had not accompanied him.

"What are you cal'latin' to do this mornin', Al?" inquired the captain.

"Oh, I don't know exactly, Grandfather. I'm going to look about the
place a bit, write a letter to my publishers, and take a walk, I think.
You will probably see me at the office pretty soon. I'll look in there
by and by."

"Ain't goin' to write one or two of those five hundred dollar stories
before dinner time, are you?"

"I guess not, sir. I'm afraid they won't be written as quickly as all
that."

Captain Lote shook his head. "Godfreys!" he exclaimed; "it ain't the
writin' of 'em I'd worry about so much as the gettin' paid for 'em.
You're sure that editor man ain't crazy, you say?"

"I hope he isn't. He seemed sane enough when I saw him."

"Well, I don't know. It's live and learn, I suppose, but if anybody but
you had told me that magazine folks paid as much as five hundred dollars
a piece for yarns made up out of a feller's head without a word of truth
in 'em, I'd--well, I should have told the feller that told me to go to
a doctor right off and have HIS head examined. But--well, as 'tis I
cal'late I'd better have my own looked at. So long, Al. Come in to the
office if you get a chance."

He hurried out. Albert walked to the window and watched the sturdy
figure swinging out of the yard. He wondered if, should he live to
his grandfather's age, his step would be as firm and his shoulders as
square.

Olive laid a hand on his arm.

"You don't mind his talkin' that way about your writin' those stories,
do you, Albert?" she asked, a trace of anxiety in her tone. "He don't
mean it, you know. He don't understand it--says he don't himself--but
he's awful proud of you, just the same. Why, last night, after you and
he had finished talkin' and he came up to bed--and the land knows what
time of night or mornin' THAT was--he woke me out of a sound sleep to
tell me about that New York magazine man givin' you a written order
to write six stories for his magazine at five hundred dollars a piece.
Zelotes couldn't seem to get over it. 'Think of it, Mother,' he kept
sayin'. 'Think of it! Pretty nigh twice what I pay as good a man as
Labe Keeler for keepin' books a whole year. And Al says he ought to do
a st