e prisoners for exceeding the
speed limit.--What's the bail? I'll help them out for the sake of their
families.' So he bailed us out, and we went back together, with Bud
thinking he'd played us a fine, swell joke."

"Did you jump your bail?" Merry inquired, thoroughly amused.

"No; we didn't dare. We came up before the judge next morning, and it
cost us ten bones apiece and costs. That's what made me so short on my
Christmas money."

"I'll guarantee you found some way to get around that," Cosden said,
suggestively egging him on to display his youthfulness.

Billy grinned. "I had to," he admitted. "I thought I could get some
money from Uncle Monty, but he had gone away, so I had Mother's present
charged to Father, and Father's present charged to Mother."

"Frenzied finance!" cried Cosden, amused in spite of his desire to
disparage the boy. "You are wasting your time in college; you should be
in Wall Street."

"Your advice ought to be good, Mr. Cosden," agreed Billy, "for you
certainly know how to make your money work overtime. I can always tell
when Uncle Monty gives me any of the tired cash he wins out of you from
the gratitude it shows for getting a little rest."

Cosden did not like Billy's come-backs, and he did not like the
amusement which he saw restrained in Merry's face. Still, he accepted
the responsibility in large measure for putting himself on the boy's
level.

"I'd like to have charge of your business education," he said
significantly.

"It may come to that," the boy said with a total lack of enthusiasm.
"That's the one real threat Uncle Monty always holds over me."

"You are impertinent--" Cosden realized that the ragging was going too
far.

"Who began it?" was the retort.

"Who is going to invite me to have some strawberries and cream?" Merry
interrupted, feeling it to be her mission to come to the rescue, and
recognizing Billy's mistake in antagonizing so close a friend of his
uncle.

Billy was on his feet in an instant, but Cosden was ahead of him.

"I know the place," Merry said. "You see, I'm the old settler here, so
I'll show you all the attractions. Think of strawberries and cream in
January!--Won't you go ahead of us, Mr. Cosden, and ask the boy to put a
table out on the piazza? It will be lovely there."

As Cosden moved out of earshot she turned to her companion.

"You must not upset him like that, Billy," she reproved him firmly;
"your uncle will never forgive you."

"He has