"Ha! ha!" he crowed. "That's good! Then, from your questioning of the
children, you've learned--?"

"Not such an awful lot. I think I've learned that--hum! that a good
guardian might be a handy thing to have in the house. A reg'lar legal
guardian, I mean. Otherwise--"

"Otherwise?"

"Otherwise there might be too many disinterested volunteer substitutes
for the job. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it."

"Have you made up your mind to be that guardian?"

"Not yet. I haven't made up my mind to anything yet. Now, Mr. Sylvester,
while we're waitin' for what comes next--you've ordered enough grub
to victual a ship--s'pose you just run over what your firm knows about
'Bije. That is, if I ain't askin' too much."

"Not at all. That's what I'm here for. You have a right to know. But I
warn you my information isn't worth much."

He went on, briefly and with the conciseness of the legal mind, to tell
of A. Rodgers Warren, his business and his estate. He had been a broker
with a seat on the Stock Exchange.

"That seat is worth consider'ble, ain't it?" interrupted the captain.

"Between eighty and one hundred thousand dollars."