boy, David," he went on, "and I understand exactly how
you feel. What you have done for Penelope will never be forgotten, will
it, my little girl?" The emphasis on the last phrase of possession
extinguished the spark of hope in me, and had he stopped there I should
have surrendered feebly, but turning to my father, he added: "You have a
fine boy, Judge, and I like him. When I get home I shall send him a gun.
What kind of a gun do you want, David?"

Young as I was then, I had not yet learned to value the good things of
life in terms of dollars, and to the power of the dollar my eyes were
just being opened. This man wielded it. He was enticing Penelope behind
the barrier of his fat, oily prosperity where I could not reach her.
Holding her there, he was magnanimously compensating me with a gun, as
though we were making a trade in which the profit were mine, as though he
were valuing her in money. My dislike, born of the Professor's
contemptuous reference to him, had turned to distrust and aversion as I
watched him weaving his toils about Penelope. Now I hated him and drew
back from him as though his touch were baneful; I stamped a foot and
shook a fist and shouted: "I don't want your old gun; Penelope doesn't
want your money. You have no right----"

My father's arms were about me. He lifted me from my feet and carried me
to the door, and as I struggled blindly to free myself and return to the
attack I looked back at Rufus Blight. It was not to see him sinking
under the shame of my anathema. Signs of anger in him would have
incensed me far less than his lofty unconcern. He even interceded for
me, but this only proved how secure was his victory, and that to his view
what fell to me was of little moment.

"Don't be hard on Davy, Judge," he said, interrupting my father's
apologies for my rudeness. "He's just a boy. I don't know but what, if
I were in his place, I should do exactly the same thing--feel exactly the
same way."

This was small consolation to me, for Penelope's head was buried in his
shoulder; her face was hidden by her tousled hair, but I could hear her
sobbing: "Uncle--uncle--let me stay with Davy."

In the plea alone she acknowledged her kin to him and surrendered. He
could well afford to be generous. By every law of custom I had merited
severe punishment at my father's hands, and that his hands were stayed by
Mr. Blight's intercession was but another evidence of his power. When my
father r