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 and Aunt Hope, worrying over the thought of disgrace the son of an old friend might bring, was trying to bring, on them in their old days. For the failure of this company, the ousting of Uncle Hal, would be a disgrace to them that they could never bear."

"There's no disgrace in honest failure, Miss Nearing. The business world, heartless as it is said to be, never looks on it in that light."

"Uncle Hal only wants time, time to catch up on his losses, to pay every stockholder his original investment, if not a profit," she urged, knowing her lesson very well, Barrett thought. "I sent for you to come while Uncle Hal was away to ask you, as a gentleman and a friend of the family, to leave here, Mr. Barrett, drop this silly little attempt of yours to investigate something that's away too much of a big man's problem for a boy of your experience to handle, or even understand."

"He could have refused to put me to work; that would have been the better way," said Barrett, seeming to answer his own question of a little while before, the question she had passed over and ignored. "But I have not done anything, Miss Nearing, nor found out anything, to give an honest man one moment's uneasiness."

"He was more afraid of what you'd tell around when you went back home than what you'd find out, I'm sure, if he sent you away without giving you a chance to try, your hand at this despicable, sneaking detective business," she told him, scornfully.

"But it would have been wiser," he persisted, thinking of the three guns that had leaped to work the