promise to see that it was spent, and not hoarded as I have hoarded
mine? You'd promise that wouldn't you?"

Roy by this time began to think that the partial sunstroke had
completely unhinged Mr. Tyler's brain, already a little out of plumb.

"Oh, yes," he laughed. "There's no danger of our hoarding money. There
are too many things to spend it on for that."

"Then you're squeezed a little down at your place, eh?"

"Oh, we can get along," returned Roy hastily; "but we can't do much
branching out. My mother has only the income from father's insurance,
and then there's the place which we own, with the taxes to pay."

The old man now relapsed into silence. He seemed to be thinking,
deeply. Suddenly he started up and exclaimed:

"It must be nearly time for Sydney to be here. Won't you go outside
and watch for him?"

Roy was very glad to leave the miser. He realized that perhaps it was
wrong for him to feel that way, but then, believing him to be a little
unbalanced, it was but natural that he should be sensible of some
constraint in his presence.

"I wonder if be has got $500,000 put away somewhere?" he asked himself
when he reached the little portico. "He talked exactly as if he was
going to give it to me. I suppose for what I did for him on the
bridge. That would be just like a story episode, so much like one that