“I’m glad to hear you say so, because it would be terrible if poor Matilda should get into more trouble on account of passing bad money.  But is this going to alter our plans any, Hugh?”

“I don’t see why it should,” came the steady reply.

“We’ll continue to do business at the old stand, shall we, then?” pursued Thad; “and try our level best to find out some way to force that leech to let go the hold he has secured on his sister?”

“We’ll keep on trying to learn something about Luther that will give us an advantage, so we can make him do just what we want,” explained Hugh; and it might have been noticed that he was now very particular just what words he used when he spoke of the reformed tramp.

“Huh! there’s only one answer to that,” grunted Thad; “which is to influence him to move on his way, and clear out.  Scranton will never miss Brother Lu; and the wide world he loves so well beckons to him to come on.  After all, once a tramp always a tramp, they say; and as a rule such fellows die in the harness.”

“It’s really a disease, I’ve read, like the hookworm down South, that makes so many of the poor, underfed whites in the mountain districts seem too lazy for any use.  It gets in the blood when they are boys, and they feel a strong yearning just to loaf, and knock around, and pick up their meals when and where they can.”

“Well, I can believe a part of that, Hugh, but the meal end is too much for me to swallow.  Whoever heard of a tramp who didn’t respond to a dinner-bell on a farm?  Eating and sleeping are their long suits, and they can beat the world at both.  When it comes to going in swimming now, they draw the line every time, for fear of taking cold, I reckon.  But I own up Brother Lu Isn’t a bad looker, now that he’s reformed far enough to keep his face and hands clean, and wear Mr. Hosmer’s Sunday-go-to-meeting suit of clothes, which just fits him by squeezing, and turning up the trouser-legs several inches at the bottom.”

“Yes, he isn’t a bad-looking man, and if we didn’t know how fierce he seemed at the time we first ran across him in the patch of woods, we’d hardly dream he’d ever been down and out.  Matilda’s cooking seems to agree with him.”

“Shucks! it agrees too well with him, and that’s the trouble.  Now, I wonder if there could be any way to make him sicken on his bill of fare.  I’m going to think it over, and see if I can evolve a scheme along those lines.”

“You’ll find it hard to do,” suggested Hugh, “because he eats just what Andrew does, I suppose; as for Matilda, I do believe she stints her appetite so as to be able to give her sick charges their fill.”

“She does look thinner than before, that’s a fact!” exclaimed the indignant Thad.  “What a burning shame all this is, Hugh!  Surely there must be some remedy for it.  I’ve got a good notion to have a talk with Dominie Pettigrew, and spin him the whole painful story.  He might find a way to separate Brother Lu from his quarry.”