"Look here, Phil. You're the biggest coward I ever met!"

"If you think so, suppose you do it yourself," said Philip. "That'll show whether you are a coward or not."

"That's absurd. It wouldn't be in the family then. The bonds don't belong to my father. There wouldn't be any excuse for me."

"You want me to do what you are unwilling to do."

"You already explained why. Besides, I've no object in taking them. As for you, why they are part yours already; and, besides, you need the money you can raise out of them to pay your debts."

"I haven't any debts, except to you."

"So much the better for you," answered Congreve, coolly. "You won't have any one to pay except me."

"I wish I'd never made your acquaintance," said poor Philip.

"Very complimentary, upon my word!" replied Congreve, with a sneer. "It strikes me that you have got as much pleasure out of the acquaintance as I."

"I haven't got you into my debt."

"It isn't my fault if I am a better player at cards than you. However, that's neither here nor there. I don't propose to play any more with you. I ought not to have let you run up such a score. Just pay that off, and I won't trouble you any more."

"I've told you I can't pay you."

"Except in one way, and that way is an easy enough one. Listen to reason, Phil," he said, dropping his sneer. "Don't you see it is going to benefit you as well as me? You'll have a good deal of money left for your own use, after paying me, provided you take two hundred-dollar bonds. It will be convenient to have fifty or sixty dollars in your pocket, eh?'

"Yes," a.s.sented Philip, more cheerfully.

"Of course it will, and it will be fun to see Harry Gilbert hauled up for stealing them. Ho! ho! ho!"

Philip echoed the laughter. This phase of the transaction certainly did please him.

"If it can be brought about," he said, doubtfully.

"Of course it can. Listen, and I'll tell you how. You can tell your father you saw Harry acting suspiciously near the house the evening it is done."

"But the door would be locked."

"You can unlock it, and leave it unlocked all night. It will be found so in the morning; and, even if the bonds are not immediately missed, the circ.u.mstance will be remembered."

Philip's mind changed again. The plan looked more feasible and attractive as Congreve represented it.

"Well, I don't know but I'll try it," he said.

"I thought you'd be sensible," said Congreve, inwardly rejoiced. "Now, let me give you one piece of advice."

"What is that?"

"Strike while the iron's hot. If you want to know what that means, never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day."

"You don't mean I should go right home and do it?" said Philip, nervously.

"No; wait till to-night--when everybody is in bed. Then steal downstairs and do the job. The sooner it's over, the better!"

"I'll see about it," replied Philip, hesitatingly.

"He's a little coward," said Congreve to himself; "but I guess I can bring him to it."

CHAPTER x.x.xII

PHILIP DOES NOT FEEL HAPPY

At supper time Philip seemed so sober and preoccupied that his mother said:

"What ails you, Philip?"

"Nothing. What makes you ask?"

"I thought you were looking unusually sober."

"I suppose it is because I have a headache," answered the boy.

It was not a falsehood, for the burden upon his mind had actually given him a slight headache.

"You'd better let me mix you some chamomile tea," said Mrs. Ross, with whom this was a specific against more than one bodily disability.

"No, thank you," answered Philip, with an involuntary grimace; for, in his younger days, when it was useless to resist, he had more than once had an opportunity of learning how far from agreeable chamomile tea was to the taste. "It doesn't ache much. It will be better soon."

"The tea will cure you immediately, my son."

"I won't take it," said Philip, roughly.

"Don't speak in that way to your mother, Philip," said his father, reprovingly.

"Do you ever let her give you chamomile tea, father?"

"No," smiled the Colonel, "I don't require it."

"Nor I; and, if I did, I prefer the headache."

"I am not sure whether I don't agree with you," said his father, smiling again.

When supper was over, Philip lounged about restlessly. Nothing could be done as yet--nothing, indeed, till his father had retired and was fairly asleep--and, in the meantime, he had to wait in suspense.

He strolled out to the stable without any definite object to take him there. He was in an unquiet, irritable frame of mind, which was likely to exhibit itself on the smallest provocation.