son and heir would grow up to scatter the dollars
which old man Dunklee had accumulated by years of relentless avarice
and unflagging toil. But Dr. Hardy--he who had officiated in an
all-important capacity upon that momentous occasion in the Dunklee
household--Dr. Hardy shook his head wisely, and perhaps sadly, as if he
were saying to himself: "No, the child will never do either what the
old folk or what the other folk would have him do; he is not long for
here."

Had you questioned him closely, Dr. Hardy would have told you that
little Abel was as frail a babe as ever did battle for life. Dr. Hardy
would surely never have dared say that to old Dunklee; for in his
rapture in the coming of that little boy old Dunklee would have smote
the offender who presumed even to intimate that the babe was not the
most vigorous as well as the most beautiful creature upon earth. The
old man was simply assotted upon the child,--in a selfish way,
undoubtedly, but even this selfish love of that puny little child
showed that the old man was capable of somewhat better than his past
life had been. To hear him talk you might have fancied that Mrs.
Dunklee had no part or parcel or interest in their offspring. It was
always "my little boy,"--yes, old Abel Dunklee's money had a rival in
the old man's heart at last, and that rival was a helpless, shrunken,
sickly little babe.

Among his business associates Abel Dunklee was familiarly known as Old
Growly, for the reason that his voice was harsh and discordant, and
sounded for all the world like the hoarse growling of an ill-natured
bear. Abel was not a particularly irritable person, but his slavish
devotion to money-getting, his indifference to the amenities of life,
his entire neglect of the tender practices of humanity, his rough,
unkempt personality, and his deep, hoarse voice,--these things combined
to make that sobriquet of "Old Growly" an exceedingly appropriate one.
And presumably Abel never thought of resenting the slur implied therein
and thereby; he was too shrewd not to see that, however disrespectful
and evil-intentioned the phrase might be, it served him to good
purpose; for it conduced to that very general awe, not to say terror,
which kept people from bothering him with their charitable and
sentimental schemes.

Yes, I think we can accept it as a fact that Abel liked that sobriquet;
it meant more money in his pocket, and fewer demands upon his time and
patience.

But Ol