years old, in which he said that he had given you five thousand dollars
to have me educated."

"What nonsense! What an outrage!" exclaimed the grocer, though Bob's
statement had caused his face to become more than usually ashen-hued.
"I've a mind to thrash you for saying such a thing. Me have five
thousand dollars of yours! I never heard anything so preposterous!"

"I tell you, you have the money. Here's the letter that says so,"
retorted Bob. And, as he spoke, he drew his hand from his pocket,
disclosing to the uneasy gaze of his guardian an envelope yellow with
age, worn and soiled from much handling, but upon which was the writing
which he recognized, all too well, as that of Horace Chester, Bob's
father.

For an instant the grocer glowered at the boy and the letter, and then
his shrewd mind, suggesting a way out of the embarrassing predicament in
which the boy had placed him, he exclaimed:

"Poor Horace! I had always hoped to keep from you the fact that he was
insane at the time of his death, but this letter makes it impossible. It
was while laboring under the delusion that he had money, that he wrote
you of this phantom bequest. Poor Horace! The sight of his writing moves
me deeply, especially as I have to disabuse you of the delusion that I
am holding five thousand dollars in trust for you," and he held out his
hand.

Had it not been for the look of cunning that appeared in his guardian's
eyes as he uttered these words, which cast such a stigma upon the name
of the boy's dead father, Bob might have believed him, but he had been