food but chewing them long and thoughtfully. Ellabelle
was chiefly interested in the names of the hearty young vandals. She was
delighted to learn that they was all of the right set, and her eyes
glowed with pride. The eyes of Angus, _peer_, was now glowing with what
I could see was something else, though I couldn't make out just what it
was. He never once exploded like you'd of thought he was due to.

"Then come a note for the boy which the perfect-mannered Englishman that
was tending us said was brought by a messenger. Young Angus glanced at
the page and broke out indignantly. 'The thieving old pirate!' he says.
'Last night he thought it would be about eighteen hundred dollars, and
that sounded hysterical enough for the few little things we'd scratched
or mussed up. I told him he would doubtless feel better this morning,
but in any event to send the bill to me and I would pay it.'

"'Quite right of you,' says Ellabelle proudly.

"'And now the scoundrel sends me one for twenty-three hundred and odd.
He's a robber, net!'

"Old Angus said never a word, but chewed slowly, whilst various puzzling
expressions chased themselves acrost his eloquent face. I couldn't make
a thing out of any of them.

"'Never patronize the fellow again,' says Ellabelle warmly.

"'As to that,' says her son, 'he hinted something last night about
having me arrested if I ever tried to patronize him again, but that
isn't the point. He's robbing me now.'

"'Oh, money!' says Ellabelle in a low tone of disgust and with a gesture
like she was rebuking her son for mentioning such a thing before the
servant.

"'But I don't like to be taken advantage of,' says he, looking very
annoyed and grand. Then old Angus swallowed something he'd been chewing
for eight minutes and spoke up with an entirely new expression that
puzzled me more than ever.

"'If you're sure you have the right of it, don't you submit to the
outrage.'

"Angus, Junior, backed up a little bit at this, not knowing quite how to
take the old man's mildness. 'Oh, of course the fellow might win out if
he took it into court,' he says. 'Every one knows the courts are just a
mass of corruption.'

"'True, I've heard gossip to that effect,' says his father. 'Yet there
must be some way to thwart the crook. I'm feeling strangely ingenious at
the moment.' He was very mild, and yet there was something sinister and
Scotch about him that the boy felt.

"'Of course I'd pay it out of my own money