Page:Bobbie, General Manager (1913).djvu/107

Rh "Well," he said, "does this close our business transactions? Are you all fixed up now?"

I shook my head and blushed, ashamed somehow to be in need of so much money.

"Oh, I know," I hastened to say, "that there's no more work you can give me, and I do thank you—I do really."

"Let's see," Dr. Maynard said. "Let's see. What kind of a hand do you write? If it's plain and legible, I don't know but what I'll engage you to copy some old letters of my mother's—written to me when I was a small boy at school. The ink is fading and I want them preserved."

"Dr. Maynard," I exclaimed, "I don't know what I'd do if it wasn't for you!" There were almost tears in my eyes I was so grateful.

"Nonsense," he laughed. "But what do you want so much money for?"

"A bill—for some dresses I had made, and I don't want to bother Alec."

Dr. Maynard gave a long low whistle.

"Oh, I see." Then quite seriously he added, "Better tell him, Bobbie."

"Dr. Maynard," I said, "if you mention one single word of this to Alec, you don't know the harm you'll do. You don't know!" Why, if Alec had gotten wind of what Oliver had done, there wouldn't be a scrap of lenience shown that poor twin. It would mean clattering looms for Oliver, as surely as the electric chair for a murderer; and I was absolutely fierce in my determination that that brother of mine should graduate from college, as well as all the others. Before Dr. Maynard went home that afternoon he had