"Bates, if you can give us some coffee-? Let the
room go for the present."
''Yes, sir."
"And Bates-"
He paused and Larry's keen eyes were bent sharply
upon him.
"Mr. Donovan is a friend who will be with me for
some time. We'll fix up his room later in the day"
He limped out, Larry's eyes following him.
"What do you think of that fellow?" I asked.
Larry's face wore a puzzled look.
"What do you call him,-Bates? He's a plucky fellow."
Larry picked up from the hearth the big candelabrum
with which Bates had defended himself. It
was badly bent and twisted, and Larry grinned.
"The fellow who went out through the front door
probably isn't feeling very well to-day. Your man was
swinging this thing like a windmill."
"I can't understand it," I muttered. "I can't, for
the life of me, see why he should have given battle to
the enemy. They all belong to Pickering, and Bates is
the biggest rascal of the bunch."
"Humph! we'll consider that later. And would you
mind telling me what kind of a tallow foundry this is?
I never saw so many candlesticks in my life. I seem
to taste tallow. I had no letters from you, and I supposed
you were loafing quietly in a grim farm-house,
dying of ennui, and here you are in an establishment
that ought to be the imperial residence of an Eskimo
chief. Possibly you have crude petroleum for soup and
whipped salad-oil for dessert. I declare, a man living
here ought to attain a high candle-power of luminosity.
It's perfectly immense." He stared and laughed. "And
hidden treasure, and night attacks, and young virgins
in the middle distance,-yes, I'd really like to stay a
while."
As we ate breakfast I filled in gaps I had left in my
hurried narrative, with relief that I can not describe filling
my heart as I leaned again upon the sympathy of
an old and trusted friend.
As Bates came and went I marked Larry's scrutiny of
the man. I dismissed him as soon as possible that we
might talk freely.
"Take it up and down and all around, what do you
think of all this?" I asked.
Larry was silent for a moment; he was not given to
careless speech in personal matters.
"There's more to it than frightening you off or getting
your grandfather's money. It's my guess that
there's something in this house that somebody-Pickering
supposedly-is very anxious to find."
"Yes; I begin to think so. He could come in here
legally if it were merely a matter of searching for lost
assets."
"Yes; and whatever it is it must be well hidden. As
I remember, your grandfather died in June. You got
a letter calling you home in October."
"It was sent out blindly, with not one chance in a
hundred that it would ever reach me."