When young Jacob Dolph came in front of the low, hip-roofed house, whose lower story of undressed stone shone with fresh whitewash, Mr. Van Riper stood on his stoop and checked his guest at the front gate, a dozen yards away. From this distance he jabbed his big gold-headed cane toward the young man, as though to keep him off. [Illustration] "Stay there, sir--you, sir, you Jacob Dolph!" he roared, brandishing the big stick. "Stand back, I tell you! Don't come in, sir! Good-day, sir--good-day, good-day, good-day!" (This hurried excursus was in deference to a sense of social duty.) "Keep away, confound you, keep away--consume your body, sir, stay where you are!" "I'm not coming any nearer, Mr. Van Riper," said Jacob Dolph, with a smile which he could not help. "I can't have you in here, sir," went on Mr. Van Riper, with no abatement of his agitation. "I don't want to be inhospitable; but I've got a wife and a son, sir, and you're infectious--damn it, sir, you're infectious!" "I'll stay where I am, Mr. Van Riper," said young Jacob, smiling again. "I only came with a message from my father." "With a what?" screamed Mr. Van Riper. "I can't have--oh, ay, a message! Well, say it then and be off, like a sensible youngster. Consume it, man, can't you talk farther out in the street?" When Mr. Van Riper learned his visitor's message, he flung his stick on the white pebbles of the clam-shell-bordered path, and swore that he, Van Riper, was the only sane man in a city of lunatics, and that if Jacob Dolph tried to carry out his plan he should be shipped straightway to Bloomingdale. But young Jacob had something of his father's patience, and, despite the publicity of the interview, he contrived to make Mr. Van Riper understand how matters stood. To tell the truth, Van Riper grew quite sober and manageable when he realized that his extravagant imputation of insanity was not so wide of the mark as it might have seemed, and that there was a possibility that his old friend's mind might be growing weak. He even ventured a little way down the path and permitted Jacob to come to the gate while they discussed the situation. "Poor old Dolph--poor old Jacob!" he groaned. "We must keep him out of the hands of the sharks, that we must!" He did not see young Jacob's irrepressible smile at this singular extension of metaphor. "He mustn't be allowed to sell that house in open market--never, sir! Confound it, I'll buy it myself before I'll see him fleeced!" In the end he agreed, on certain strict conditions of precaution, to see young Jacob the next day and discuss ways and means to save the property. "Come here, sir, at ten, and I'll see you in the sitting-room, and we'll find out what we can do for your father--curse it, it makes me feel bad; by gad, it does! Ten to-morrow, then--and come fumigated, young man, don't you forget that--come fumigated, sir!"