"Crabtree, you rascal!" ejaculated Dick.

"Who -- who is that?" spluttered the former teacher of Putnam Hall,
in dismay.

"It is I -- Dick Rover. What are you doing here?"

"I -- I came to call upon the Widow Stanhope," stammered Josiah
Crabtree. He was so astonished he knew not what to say.

"You came to rob her, more likely," sneered Tom. "You just broke
in at the window."

"No, no -- it -- it is all a mistake, Rover. I -- I am stopping here
for the night."

"Indeed!" gasped Dick, almost struck dumb over the man's show of
"nerve," as he afterward expressed it.

"Yes, I am stopping here."

"With Mrs. Stanhope's permission of course."

"Certainly. How could I stop here otherwise?"

"What are you doing in the kitchen all alone?'"

"Why, I -- er -- I was up in my room, but I -- er -- wanted a glass
of water and so came down for it."