Page:Bob Chester's Grit.djvu/50

38 caused his face to become more than usually ashen-hued. "I've a mind to thrash you for saying such a thing. Me have five thousand dollars of yours! I never heard anything so preposterous!"

"I tell you, you have the money. Here's the letter that says so," retorted Bob. And, as he spoke, he drew his hand from his pocket, disclosing to the uneasy gaze of his guardian an envelope yellow with age, worn and soiled from much handling, but upon which was the writing which he recognized, all too well, as that of Horace Chester, Bob's father.

For an instant the grocer glowered at the boy and the letter, and then his shrewd mind, suggesting a way out of the embarrassing predicament in which the boy had placed him, he exclaimed:

"Poor Horace! I had always hoped to keep from you the fact that he was insane at the time of his death, but this letter makes it impossible. It was while laboring under the delusion that he had money, that he wrote you of this phantom bequest. Poor Horace! The sight of his writing moves me deeply, especially as I have to disabuse you of the delusion that I am holding five thousand dollars in trust for you," and he held out his hand.

Had it not been for the look of cunning that