Page:St. Nicholas - Volume 41, Part 1.djvu/52

38 . You seem to think it quite a place, but it ’s little bigger than your own village.”

“About ten times bigger,” remarked Pelham.

“Nothing to buy there,” scoffed Brian. “I saw nothing to make me take out my roll.”

“What do you mean by this roll that you talk so much about?” asked Pelham. “I thought it was understood that your father was to give you no more than my allowance, five dollars a month.”

“Just the same,” laughed Brian, “was it agreed that I was to come without money? It ’s all very well, Pelly, my boy, limiting myself down to your scale of living. Thanks to that robbery, my European trip is spoiled, and Father has to spend the summer in the city. Even Mother is visiting about. So if I 'm to live here with you people, it 's right that I should n’t bring my luxurious habits to corrupt Uncle Rob’s simple country household. Mind you, I don’t think that Uncle is right. He can do nothing to stop the march of progress proper to people of our class. And I think it will work out wrong for you in the long run. When you get to college, Pelham, and meet the fellows that have money—well, never mind. But, at any rate, for this summer I ’ll keep within the same allowance as you do.”

Pelham had listened quietly. The other had not watched his face, or he would have noticed the eyes growing more and more serious, the mouth more and more firm. At the end, he asked, in a voice that was perfectly level, “But the roll?”

Brian reached into his pocket, and, drawing out a wallet, displayed within it layer upon layer of bank-bills. “Why, how you stare!” he mocked. “Has Cousin Pelham never seen so much before?”

But Pelham was not staring. A little line, the beginning of a frown, showed between his eye-brows. Little prickles ran up his neck, a strange sensation of anger at this defiance of his father.

“Don’'t let Father see it!”’ he warned.

“What if he did?” asked Brian, flushing.

“I guess,” his cousin answered, “that either you or the money would go straight back to the city.”

“If he did that,” began Brian, hotly, “then my father—” He checked himself. “My mother, I mean—" He stopped entirely.

Pelham smiled with sudden amusement. “So Aunt Annie gave you the money! Well, Brian, keep it to yourself, that ’s all.”

Brian slipped the wallet into his pocket. “No fear,” he remarked. “There is n’t anything to spend it on here, anyway. If I had Father’s auto here, I could run you over to Springfield in a couple of hours, and give you some fun.”

“Your father lets you run his big auto?” asked Pelham, with a slight accent of surprise. Brian looked away. “I can run it,” he answered. “But, Pelham,” he asked quickly, “does n’t your father ever let you handle money? He ought to get you used to it.”

“Oh, I 'm used to it,” replied Pelham. ‘“More than once I ’ve carried three thousand dollars, all in bills, right in my inside pocket.”

“What for?” said Brian, surprised in his turn.

“For the pay-roll,” explained Pelham. “Some of our men at the mills get as high as thirty dollars a week, and all of them are paid above the average of ordinary mill-workers. The money comes over this road every Saturday, and—"

“Over this road!” interrupted Brian. He glanced up and down the lonely road, running through unbroken woods. “Why, a robbery would be easy!”

“Not with Father or Brother Bob carrying the money!” There was a ring of pride in Pelham's voice. “They ’re known to be pretty handy with the revolver. Bob brought over the stuff this morning.”

“But what have you to do with the money?” asked Brian.

“Oh, sometimes when they 're very busy in the office, Father sends me home with it, and Mother and Harriet and I make up the pay envelops. Or Harriet and I do it alone; she ’s mighty clever about it. And then I take the envelops back to the mill. It ’s only a couple of hundred yards.”

“Only a couple of hundred yards!” scoffed Brian. “It was only twenty-five feet across the alleyway from the bank to the side door of Father’s office, but the messenger lost twenty thousand dollars there last month in just three seconds!”

“It was hard,” murmured Pelham, sympathetically.

“It meant no Europe for me,” grumbled Brian. “And Mother ’s given up her limousine, and Father has no summer vacation. I tell you, Pelham, if you lived in the city, you 'd never dare take such risks with your money. Why, I don’t go fifty feet in a crowded street without touching myself to see if my money is safe.” Brian put his hand to his hip, started, stared, felt wildly inside the pocket, then cried:

“The wallet is gone!”

Pelham stopped the horse. “Look under your feet,” he suggested.

But Brian was already searching frantically among the bundles that had reposed beneath the seat. “It ’s not here!” he cried, after a minute, “Pelham, we must go back. It must have fallen out!”

“Jump out and walk back,” directed Pelham, “I’ll turn and follow.”