t the sound of his footsteps on the hard floor his guardian suddenly
appeared from his private office, his shrewd face suffused by the
ingratiating smirk he always put on when going to meet a prospective
customer. At the sight of his ward standing in the middle of the floor,
however, he started, and then his face assumed a look of forbidding
severity.

"What, you here!" the grocer exclaimed, as he regained control of
himself. "I thought--that is, I was told--I mean, I heard that you had
been arrested, and I didn't expect to see you again for some time; that
is--I mean not here in the store. If you had been sent to prison I
should, of course, have gone to see you."

Never before had Bob seen his guardian so ill at ease, and from his
knowledge of the man, he decided that his entrance must have interrupted
him when he was engaged at some unusual task. But how to meet the
situation, Bob did not know, and he was vainly striving to think of the
right thing to say when their relations were brought back to their
normal plane by his guardian snarling:

"What did you do with my delivery basket? Did you leave it with the
groceries, or didn't you even deliver them?"

The subtle cruelty of this remark stung Bob to the quick. It was the
straw that broke his endurance of the long term of abuse and harsh words
to which he had been subjected.

"No, I didn't deliver the groceries," he flashed back. "I had to leave
the basket at the police station when they took me to court, and after
the judge told me I could go, I didn't want to go back to the place for
it."

"But there were three dollars worth of groceries in it," wailed his
guardian, wringing his hands. "Here, just because you didn't mind what I
told you about stopping to play on the way when you are delivering
orders, you get arrested and leave me here alone for almost four hours,
without any one to deliver goods, and my customers all complaining
because they don't get their orders. And as though that weren't enough,
you deliberately abandon three dollars' worth of groceries. But you'll
pay for them, young man! You'll pay for them! Never fear. I shall take
the two dollars you would have had coming to you to-night in part
payment, and then one dollar from your wages next Saturday night."

For an instant, Bob was tempted to produce the five dollars the kindly
magistrate had given him and pay for the groceries then and there. But
there swept through his mind an idea fascinating