“Because he wanted to, I reckon,” Dwight started out, impatiently, and then a note of caution came into his voice as he remembered the warning of the family physician against causing the patient even the slightest worry. “Warren hasn't a blessed thing to do, you know, from mom till night. So when he strikes a busy man he is apt to hang on to him and talk in his long-winded way about any subject that takes possession of his brain. He's great on showing men how to manage their own affairs. It takes an idle man to do that. If that man hadn't had money left to him he would now be begging his bread from door to door.” “Somehow I fancied it was about Carson,” Mrs. Dwight sighed. “There you go!” her husband said, with as much grace of evasion as lay in his sturdy compound. “Lying there from day to day, you seem to have contracted Warren's complaint. You think nobody can drop in even for a minute without coming about your boy--your boy! Some day, if you live long enough, you may discover that the universe was not created solely for your son, nor made just to revolve around him either.” “Yes, I suppose I _do_ worry about Carson a great deal,” the invalid admitted; “but you haven't told me right out that the Major was _not_ speaking of him.” The old man's face was the playground of conflcting impulses. He grew red with anger and his lips trembled on the very verge of an outburst, but he controlled himself. In fact, his irritability calmed down as he suddenly saw a loop-hole through which to escape her questioning. “The truth is,” he said, “Warren was talking about Albert's death. He talked quite a while about it. He almost broke down.” “Well, I'm so worried about Carson's campaign that I imagine all sorts of trouble,” Mrs. Dwight sighed. “I lay awake nearly all of last night thinking about one little thing. When he was in his room dressing the other day, I heard something fall to the floor. Hilda had taken him some hot water for shaving, and when she came back she told me he had dropped his revolver out of his pocket. You know till then I had had no idea he carried one, and while it may be necessary at times, the idea is very disagreeable.” “You needn't let _that_ bother you,” Dwight said, as he took his hat to go down to his office at his warehouse. “Nearly all the young men carry them because they think it looks smart. Most of them would run like a scared dog if they saw one pointed at them even in fun.” “Well, I hope my boy will never have any use for one,” the invalid said. “He is not of a quarrelsome nature. It takes a good deal to make him angry, but when he gets so he is not easily controlled.” CHAPTER IV. [Illustration: 9046]