Page:Young Hunters of the Lake.djvu/83

Rh of an American. They all went to live at a place called Watchville on the seacoast. My uncle was then writing a great work on ancient history to be issued in ten big volumes."

"Phew! I hope he didn't want any fellows to study it," murmured the doctor's son.

"Mother has told me that my uncle was all right in his mind while I was a little boy and when my father was alive. But after my father died Uncle Pierre grew kind of queer in his head. My mother thought it was too much study and she advised him to take a rest. But he said he must get his big history written and he kept on writing and burning the midnight oil as college fellows call it, and it made him queerer and queerer every day.

"One day he went to the post-office for his mail. That was when I was about nine years old. When he got back he began to dance around and he caught me by the hands and rushed around the house like a crazy man. 'A hundred thousand francs! A hundred thousand francs!' he kept calling out, over and over again. Then my mother asked him what he meant. He said a distant relative had died and left him and her a hundred thousand francs."

"How much is that?" asked Whopper, who knew little about French money.