ext morning. Ellabelle's health was still breaking
down, but young Angus sneaked in and partook of a meagre lunch with me.
He was highly vexed with his pa. 'He's nothing but a scoundrelly old
liar,' he says to me, 'saying that he gives me but a pittance. He's
always given me a whale of an allowance. Why, actually, I've more than
once had money left over at the end of the quarter. And now his talk
about saving money! I tell you he has some other reason than money for
breaking the mater's heart.' The boy looked very shrewd as he said this.

"That night at quitting time he was strangely down at the place with his
own car to fetch his father home. 'I'll trust you this once,' says the
old man, getting in and looking more then ever like a dissolute working
man. On the way they passed this here yellow-haired daughter of the old
train-robber that there had been talk of the boy making a match with.
She was driving her own car and looked neither to right nor left.

"'Not speaking?' says old Angus.

"'She didn't see us,' says the boy.

"'She's ashamed of your father,' says the old man.

"'She's not,' says the boy.

"'You know it,' says the old scoundrel.

"'I'll show her,' says his son.

"Well, we had another cheerful evening, with Ellabelle sending word to
old Angus that she wanted me to have the necklace of brilliants with the
sapphire pendant, and the two faithful maids was to get suitable
keepsakes out of the rest of her jewels, and would her son always wear
the seal ring with her hair in it that she had given him when he was
twenty? And the old devil started in to tell how much he could have
saved by taking charge of the work in his own house, and how a union man
nowadays would do just enough to keep within the law, and so on; but he
got to yawning his head off and retired at nine, complaining that his
valet that morning had cleaned and pressed his overalls. Young Angus
looked very shrewd at me and again says: 'The old liar! He has some
other reason than money. He can't fool me.'

"I kind of gathered from both of them the truth of what happened the
next day. Young Angus himself showed up at the job about nine A.M., with
a bundle under his arm. 'Where's the old man?' his father heard him
demand of the carpenter, he usually speaking of old Angus as the
governor.

"'Here,' says he from the top of a stepladder in the entry which looked
as if a glacier had passed through it.

"'Could you put me to work?' says the boy.