“There,” said the latter, “now, if you only get away, I’d like to have the professor for a while. Don’t you wish you could play as well as he can?” “Indeed I do,” remarked Bar, politely, as he rose from the piano-stool. “I suppose, Professor, I ought to beg your pardon.” “Oh! no--no, my young frent,” exclaimed the enthusiastic German. “You haf de great genius. Nefer in all de vorlt was dere a biano filled with cats and togs before. I shall ask you to come mit me some tay. It is all fery goot fun.” So the lady guests declared, but Mrs. Manning determined to have another serious talk with her husband about the very remarkable companion he had selected for Valentine’s next year at school. A little later and Judge Danvers himself was announced. The doctor and the lawyer had a long conference of their own in the study, and then Barnaby was sent for. The judge had a number of questions to ask, especially concerning Bar’s meeting that day with Major Montague, and at the end of it, as if entirely satisfied with the young adventurer’s account of himself, he remarked to Dr. Manning: “You are right, Doctor. He and Val had better be off as soon as possible. Send them down to the seashore for a few days, and then let them start for Ogleport. It won’t hurt them to get there a little before school begins. Have you secured a boarding-place?” “Oh, yes,” said the doctor. “Old Mrs. Wood will be glad enough of another boarder in her big old barn of a house. I only wish she could cram it full, if they were all of the right sort.” “Yes,” replied the judge; “but, from what you have told me of Barnaby’s performance this evening, I fear there are curious times in store for Mrs. Wood, if not for all Ogleport.” “Indeed, sir!” exclaimed Bar, “I pledge you my word----” “There, now,” interrupted the judge; “don’t say that. I’m a dried-up old lawyer myself, but I am not so cruel or so foolish as to expect all the boys to be sixty years old. You won’t do anything bad or mean, I feel sure of that, and you mustn’t lead Val into scrapes; but if you did promise not to have any fun you couldn’t keep it. I don’t want you to try.” And so Bar’s two “guardians” decided, much to his delight, that he was to be delivered from any further risks of meeting his “uncle” or old Prosper. CHAPTER XI WILLING HANDS An unusually fine-looking man was George Brayton, only his full beard and mustache, and his length and strength of limb, made him seem at least three years older than he really was. Perhaps Effie Dryer would have been less afraid of him if she had known that he was but twenty-three, hardly more than four years older than herself. It was not so easy as the reverend doctor could have wished, however, for him to look dignifiedly down upon a man who overtopped him by a head and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds of clear bone and muscle. An evil-disposed person might have added: