“Well, just keep yer hands off till I git through, cantcha?” asked Dode, beginning for the third time to count it. The mere feel of it was so entrancing! What doors would it not open? He could get married now, go to the city, do a hundred things he had always wanted to do. The fact that his father was entitled to anything or that, having lost his wits, he was now completely helpless, a pathetic figure and very likely from now on doomed to wander about alone or to do his will, moved him not in the least. By right of strength and malehood he was now practically master here, or so he felt himself to be. As he fingered the money he glowed and talked, thinking wondrous things, then suddenly remembering the concealed eight hundred, or his father’s part of it, he added, “Yes, an’ whar’s that other eight hundred, I’d like tuh know? He’s a-carryin’ it aroun’ with him er hidin’ it hyurabout mebbe!” Then eyeing the crumpled victim suspiciously, he began to feel in the old man’s clothes, but, not finding anything, desisted, saying they might get it later. The money in his hands was finally divided: a third to Mrs. Queeder, a fourth to Jane, the balance to himself as the faithful heir and helper of his father, the while he speculated as to the whereabouts of the remaining eight hundred. Just then Queeder, who up to this time had been completely bereft of his senses, now recovered sufficiently to guess nearly all of what had so recently transpired. With a bound he was on his feet, and, looking wildly about him, exclaiming as he did so in a thin, reedy voice, “They’ve stole my prupetty! They’ve stole my prupetty! I’ve been robbed, I have! I’ve been robbed! Eh! Eh! Eh! This hyur land ain’t wuth only eight thousan’—hit’s wuth twenty-five thousan’, an’ that’s whut I could ’a’ had for it, an’ they’ve gone an’ made me sign it all away! Eh! Eh! Eh!” He jigged and moaned, dancing helplessly about until, seeing Dode with his share of the money still held safely in his hand, his maniacal chagrin took a new form, and, seizing it and running to the open door, he began to throw a portion of the precious bills to the winds, crying as he did so, “They’ve stole my prupetty! They’ve stole my prupetty! I don’t want the consarned money—I don’t want it! I want my prupetty! Eh! Eh! Eh!”