At the same hour, however, matters of even greater importance were coming to a decision around the well-filled breakfast-table in the Morris mansion.  Ham had given a pretty full account of his visit to Grantley, including his dinner at Mrs. Myers’, and all he had learned of the academy.

“It seems like spending a great deal of money,” began Mrs. Kinzer, when Ham at last paused for breath, but he caught her up at once with, “I know you’ve been paying out a great deal, Mother Kinzer, but Dab must go if I pay—­”

“You pay, indeed, for my boy!  I’d like to see myself.  Now I’ve found out what he is, I mean he shall have every advantage, if this Grantley’s the right place.”

“Mother,” exclaimed Samantha, “it’s the very place Mr. Foster is to send Ford to, and Frank Harley.”

“Exactly,” said Ham.  “Mr. Hart spoke of a Mr. Foster,—­his brother-in-law,—­a lawyer.”

“Why,” said Keziah, “he’s living in our old house now!  Ford Foster is Dab’s greatest crony.”

“Yes, I heard about it last night, but I hadn’t put the two together,” said Ham.  “Do you really mean Dab is to go?”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Kinzer.

“Well, if that isn’t doing it easy.  Do you know it’s about the nicest thing since I got here?”

“Except the barn afire,” said Dabney, unable to keep still any longer.  “Mother, may I stand on my head a while?”

“You’ll need all the head you’ve got,” said Ham.  “You wont have much time to get ready.”

“Books enough after he gets there,” exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer.  “I’ll risk Dabney.”

“And they’ll make him give up all his slang,” added Samantha.

“Yes, Sam, when I come back I’ll talk nothing but Greek and Latin.  I’m getting French now from Ford, and Hindoo from Frank Harley.  Then I know English and slang and Long Islandish.  Think of one man with seven first-rate languages.”

But Dabney found himself unable to sit still, even at the breakfast-table.  Not that he got up hungry, for he had done his duty by Miranda’s cookery, but the house itself seemed too small to hold him, with all his new prospects swelling so within him.  Perhaps, too, the rest of the family felt better able to discuss the important subject before them after Dab had taken himself into the open air.

“It beats dreaming all hollow,” said the latter to himself, as he stood, with his hands in his pockets, half-way down toward the gate between the two farms.  “Now I’ll see what can be done about that other matter.”

Two plans in one head, and so young a head as that?  Yes, and it spoke very well for Dab’s heart, as well as his brains, that plan number two was not a selfish one.  The substance of it came out in the first five minutes of the talk he had with Ford and Frank, on the other side of the gate.

“Ford, you know there’s twenty dollars left of the money the Frenchman paid us for the blue-fish.”