Page:Dick Hamilton's Fortune.djvu/112

100, and a red pink was in his buttonhole. He took off his tall hat and wiped his shining bald head with a big red silk handkerchief. No wonder he had impressed McIverson. Henry looked a little embarrassed, but Dick nodded at him in a friendly way, and made room for him on the sofa upon which he was sitting.

"I have called upon a little matter of business," said Mr. Darby, carefully depositing his hat on the carpet. "I and my son here," and he nodded in Henry's direction. "I may also add that your son is interested—er—to a considerable extent. In fact, I may say to an equal extent with ourselves."

"I wonder what's coming?" thought Mr. Hamilton, who had never seen Hank so well dressed, and who knew the man to be the laziest fellow in Hamilton Corners.

"Your son, Mr. Hamilton," went on Hank Darby, with a grand air that was strangely in contrast with his former attitude when one met him about town, "Your son, I may state, has been the means of doing something which I long have desired to see done. He has enabled me and my son to start in business—a business that, while it is small, is capable of enormous possibilities—enormous possibilities," and Mr. Darby looked as if he would puff up like a balloon and float out of the window.

"In short," he went on, "he has loaned my son two hundred and fifty dollars, for which Henry