"Oh, you kin trust me," said Abner, quickly.

He was about to pa.s.s over his ten dollars, when he felt somebody catch him by the arm, and turning, he beheld Nat.

"Nat!" he gasped.

"Not so fast, Uncle Abner!" cried our hero. "You had better keep your money."

"Wh--what?"

"Put your money away."

"See here, what do you mean by interfering?" said the stranger, roughly.

"If he gives up the pocketbook take the ten dollars out of that," went on Nat. "My idea is, there isn't a dollar in the pocketbook."

"Nat!"

"That's right, uncle. This is an old game. I heard all about it only a few days ago."

"Oh, you go to gra.s.s!" cried the stranger, with a malicious look at Nat, and then he hurried away with all speed.

"Where did you spring from, Nat?"

"I was in this neighborhood on an errand, Uncle Abner. How do you do, Mrs. Guff."

"I'm not Mrs. Guff any more," said the lady. "I'm Mrs. Balberry, your new aunt."

"Oh, so you're married, Uncle Abner."

"Yes," was the answer. "But see here, Nat, I don't understand about thet pocketbook," said the farmer.

"It's simple enough. As I said before, the game is an old one. That fellow had the pocketbook all the time. It was stuffed with old paper, with a dollar bill wrapped on the outside. He wanted to get your money, and if he had gotten it he would have left you with a pocketbook worth about a quarter, with nothing but old paper and a dollar bill in it, and maybe he would have taken the dollar bill out, too."

"Well, I never!" cried Mrs. Balberry. "Did you ever hear of such a swindle!"

"They play all sorts of games in a big city like this. You've got to keep your eyes open."

"I know it," groaned Abner Balberry. "Yesterday, a cabman cheated me out o' fifty cents, an' a boy got a quarter from me by a bogus telegram. I thought something had happened to hum, and when I opened the telegram it had nuthin but a sheet o' blank paper inside!"

"That was too bad."

There was an awkward pause. Now that the farmer had found Nat he hardly knew what to say. He had expected to upbraid his nephew for running away, but the pocketbook episode rather fl.u.s.tered him.

"So you come to New York, didn't you?" he said, slowly.

"Yes."

"Are you working?"

"Yes, and I've got a pretty good job, too."

"What at?"

"I'm in an office downtown."

"How much do you git?"

"What do you think, Uncle Abner?"

"About two or three dollars a week."

"I get seven dollars a week."

"Seven dollars a week--fer a boy!"

"You have been very lucky," put in Mrs. Balberry. "I wish Fred could strike a job like that."

"I'm to have a raise later on," added Nat.

"It wasn't right fer you to run away, Nat," continued his uncle.

"There are two ways of looking at it."

"An' you had no right to set fire to the barn."

"I never did that, Uncle Abner. I wouldn't be so mean."

"And you sold thet cow."

"She was my cow."

"No, she wasn't!"

"I say she was, and I can prove it!"

"Well, we won't quarrel about the cow. What I want to know is, are you behavin' yourself here in the city?"

"I am. I work every day, and I board with some very nice people."

"Ain't squanderin' your earnin's on theaters an' sech?"

"No, I have never seen the inside of a theater."

"Maybe you ain't seen the inside of a church either," came from Mrs.

Balberry.

"Yes, I go to church every Sunday."