Nevertheless, being fully conscious of my newly acquired wealth, I recklessly sat up until bedtime, while my thrifty Uncle occupied his “bunk” and snored peacefully. The journey was accomplished in safety, and from Boston we took the little railway to the seaport town of Batteraft. During the last hours of the trip Uncle Naboth had become very thoughtful, and I frequently noticed him making laborious memoranda with his pencil on the backs of envelopes and scraps of paper which he took from his wallet. Finally I asked: “What are you writing, Uncle?” “I’m jest jotting down the things I mean to say to that old female shark at Batteraft,” was the reply. “I tell you, Sam, she’s goin’ to have the talkin’-to of her life, when I get at her; and she’ll deserve every word of it. I’ll let you pay her first, so’s the money account will be square; an’ then I’ll try to square the moral account.” “Will she let you?” I enquired doubtfully, for I had a vivid remembrance of Mrs. Ranck’s dislike of any opposition. “She can’t help herself,” replied Uncle Naboth, seriously. “If you knew the things she up an’ said to me that day I tackled her before, Sam, an’ the harsh an’ impident tones she used to say ’em with, you’d realize how much my revenge means to me.” “Why didn’t you resent it then, Uncle?” “Why, she took me by surprise, an’ I didn’t have time to collect my parrergraphs, and that’s the reason. Also it’s the reason I’m figgerin’ out my speeches aforehand this time, so’s I won’t be backwards when the time comes. You can’t thrash the cantankerous old termagen’ like you would a man, but you can lash her with speeches that cuts like a two-edged sword. At sarcasm and ironical I’m quite a professor, Sam; but them talents would be wasted on Mrs. Ranck. With her I’ll open my vials o’ wrath an’ empty ’em to the dregs. I’ll wither her with scorn, an’—an’—an’ tell her just what I think o’ her,” he concluded, rather lamely. I sighed, for the mention of Mrs. Ranck always recalled to me the fate of my poor father. The landscape began to grow very familiar now, and presently the train swung into the little station where I had so often stood in my younger days to watch the passengers get on and off the cars. Ned Britton at once walked on to the tavern, but as the afternoon was only half gone Uncle Naboth and I decided to go on up to my father’s old home without delay and have our carefully planned interview with Mrs. Ranck. The banknotes I was to pay to her lay crisply in my new pocket-book, and I was eager to be free of my debt to the cruel woman who had aspersed my dead father’s character and driven me from my old home.