Out For Business or Robert Frost's Strange Career. Stratemeyer Edward

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Robert instantly seized the ax, which was conveniently near, and brandished it in a threatening manner.

      "Don't you dare to touch me!" he exclaimed in excitement.

      James Talbot turned pale.

      "Are you insane?" he demanded, drawing back in affright.

      "No, but I don't propose to be bulldozed. Just lay down that stick, if you please."

      Mechanically Talbot dropped it.

      "You have a terrible temper!" he exclaimed.

      "I hope not, but I am quite prepared to defend myself, Mr. Talbot."

      "How old are you, sir?"

      "Sixteen."

      "Then you are under authority. You are bound to obey me."

      "Am I? I don't recognize you as having any authority over me."

      "Evidently you have a good deal to learn. Once more, will you obey me?"

      "Once more, I won't," returned Robert firmly.

      "You will be sorry for your disobedience. You haven't seen the end of this."

      He turned and walked back to the house, feeling with mortification that he had been worsted in this first encounter with his step-son.

      "I'd like to flog that boy within an inch of his life," he muttered spitefully. "I—I wish I dared to grapple with him."

      Robert and his step-father didn't meet at dinner or supper, as the latter had to go away on business.

      "Mother," said Robert, "do you wish me to take Mr. Webber's place at the woodpile?"

      "No, Robert. It was Mr. Talbot's idea. He thought it would be healthful exercise for you."

      "Why not for him?"

      "I will try to get him off the idea."

      "It makes no difference. He can't make me do it, though he threatened me with a stick this morning."

      "Surely he did not strike you?" said his mother nervously.

      "No, I guess not. He did not dare to."

      It so happened that James Talbot did not reach home till a late hour in the evening, when Robert was already in bed. He went upstairs softly, ascertained from Robert's regular breathing that he was sound asleep, then taking the key from the lock inside, locked the door from the outside, and went downstairs with a smile.

      "When the boy wakes up, he will find himself a prisoner," he said. "I shall get even with him, after all."

      CHAPTER IV.

      MR. TALBOT IS MYSTIFIED

      Robert slept soundly, and didn't wake till near breakfast-time. He jumped out of bed and hastily dressed himself. Then he went to the door of his chamber, and tried to open it. To his surprise, he found himself unable to do so. For the first time he noticed that the key was not in the lock.

      "What does this mean?" he asked himself.

      He peered through the key-hole and detected the key sticking in from the other side of the door.

      "This is Mr. Talbot's work," he decided. "What does he expect to gain by it?"

      Robert was quite cool, and upon the whole, rather amused. It seemed to him a childish trick to play upon him.

      "What a contemptible fellow he is!" he said to himself. "It mortifies me to think he is my mother's husband."

      Robert's room was a large front apartment on the third floor. It was quite as handsome as any on the second floor. It was directly over the room occupied by his mother. She, however, must already be downstairs.

      "I am sure mother can't know of this," he decided.

      Just then the breakfast bell rang, and Robert wondered whether anyone would come up to see why he did not come down.

      Presently he heard a step on the stairs, and a minute later he heard the voice of his step-father.

      "Robert!" he called out, "are you up?"

      "Yes, Mr. Talbot. Why did you lock me in?"

      "I had my reasons. You were disobedient to me yesterday."

      Robert laughed, a little to Mr. Talbot's annoyance. He hoped to find the boy in a state of alarm, ready to submit to his orders.

      "About the wood, I suppose you mean."

      "Yes."

      "Are you going to unlock the door?"

      His voice was quite calm, and he showed no nervousness nor excitement.

      "I will upon one condition."

      "You have no right to lock me up here, and no right to make conditions."

      "That is for me to say. I will unlock the door on condition that you agree to saw and split the wood, as I required yesterday."

      "To-day is Sunday. Do you expect me to work to-day?"

      Mr. Talbot was rather taken aback. He had forgotten when the evening before he locked the door of Robert's chamber that the next day would be Sunday.

      "No, but next week."

      "I don't agree," said Robert firmly.

      "All right; I will come up in an hour, and see if you have changed your mind."

      With a malicious chuckle James Talbot drew the key from the lock, put it in his pocket, and went downstairs. His wife was already sitting in her place at the breakfast table.

      "What makes you so late, James," she asked.

      "I have been having a little interview with your son, my dear."

      "He is late, too. Is he coming down?"

      "No doubt he would like to," said her husband, chuckling.

      "I don't understand you, James. If he would like to come, why doesn't he?"

      "Because he is locked in his chamber."

      "Who locked him there?"

      "I did."

      Mrs. Talbot was a meek woman, but this excited her to anger.

      "I will go right up and let him out," she said.

      James Talbot laughed, but allowed his wife to leave the room without a word.

      She hurried up to Robert's chamber.

      "Robert!" she called through the key-hole.

      "Is it you, mother?"

      "Yes. Are you locked in?"

      "Yes."

      "Where СКАЧАТЬ