“Nephy. Folks was sorter surprised when Hickey left everythin’ to him an’ cut out his darter’s husband, Andy Jellison, but I kinder smelled a rat myself, knowin’ that they wan’t on speakin’ terms sence the darter died three years ago come next spring. They do say he treated her like a dog, an’ she wan’t in her grave two months before he up an’ married another woman. Andy done his best to make up with the old man, but it wan’t no use. Reckon he was thinkin’ o’ the spondulicks the old man would leave—he had a tidy little pile besides the place—an’ I s’pose he was arter his share. “Well, I remember the first time he come for a visit arter the darter died. He driv over to my place from the village an’ put his team up in the barn. Had a couple of grips with him an’ I nachurally thinks he’d want help to git ’em over, but don’t you believe it. Said he’d go by himself. I wan’t so surprised when I happens to lift up one o’ the grips an’ finds it light’s a feather. Couldn’t have bin nothin’ in it at all, though why he wants to lug two empty grips three miles through the woods, goodness knows. “Howsomever, that was his business, an’ I didn’t ask no questions, though I couldn’t help wonderin’. He starts off about five o’clock, an’ drat my buttons if he wan’t back about sundown, cussin’, swearin’ mad. He was a turrible profane man, was Jellison, but that night he beat the record. He calls Hickey all the names on the calendar, and got so bad I had to shet the kitchen door so Maria wouldn’t hear him, she bein’ a good church member an’ pious. “When he calms down a bit I finds that the old man wouldn’t let him in the house. Said he never wanted to set eyes on him ag’in, an’ told him to go to the hot place, I reckon. Andy had to stop with me that night, an’ next mornin’ he went back to the city, where he works in a bank. “Well, sir, all that summer he kep’ tryin’ to make up with old Hickey. ‘Bout every two weeks he’d show up for another try, but it wan’t any use. I could ‘a’ told him he was wastin’ his time, fer when the old man made up his mind, he stayed sot. But it wan’t none o’ my business, so I jest let him keep on ‘till he found out hisself. As I says, he kep’ comin’ all summer long, an’ then, about this time two years gone, he giv it up, an’ I ain’t seen him sence. I allus wondered though why in time he kep’ packin’ them empty grips along with him; but I ain’t never discovered it, an’ don’t reckon I ever will.” Merriwell smiled at the old fellow’s tone of regret. “Maybe he had left some clothes, or something like that, in the house, which he wanted to take away,” he suggested. Lysander Cobmore considered this for a moment in silence. Then he shook his head slowly. “That don’t seem nachural, some ways,” he returned. “Old man Hickey was that set agin’ Jellison he’d ‘a’ throwed anythin’ he owned outer the winder.” “On account of the way he behaved to the daughter, I suppose?” Dick mused. Cobmore wagged his stubby chin whisker emphatically.