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 reason he found it less interesting than before. Dick was gone, but the eager, frustrated look in the lad's eyes haunted him.

"I only hope the young rascal won't be playing me any trick," he said to himself. "First thing we know, he'll be clearing out altogether, and we shall hear of him digging gold among the roughs in California. Confound these youngsters! Shey all think Rome was built in a day."

Between his disapproving conscience and his fears of some sort of a catastrophe, Mr. Spencer was far from easy in his mind, and he determined to bestir himself in the matter before he was a week older.

But Dick was yet more prompt in action, and before either of them was a week older he had taken measures which were destined to disturb his father's equanimity pretty seriously.

When Dick left his father's office, it was early in the afternoon, and the out-going horse-cars were but sparsely occupied. He stepped upon the rear platform of one, and lighted a cigar for solace and inspiration. He was angry and discouraged. He felt thoroughly defeated. Yet there was a certain satisfaction in having declared open war, and being ready to take the world on its own terms. In the course of his recent boyhood, Dick had scraped acquaintance with most of the employés on this old-established road, and he soon fell into conversation with the conductor. Preoccupied as he was with the great subject of