“Mr. Pettigrew,” said Wheeler angrily, “I feel interested in you, and I want to warn you against the boy who is with you.  He is a dangerous companion.”

“I dare say you are right,” said Pettigrew in a quizzical tone.  “I shall look after him sharply, and I thank you for your kind and considerate warning.  I don’t care to take up any more of your valuable time.  Rodney, let us be going.”

“It must have been the kid that exposed me,” muttered Wheeler, as he watched the two go down the street.  “I will get even with him some time.  That man would have been good for a thousand dollars to me if I had not been interfered with.”

“You have been warned against me, Mr. Pettigrew,” said Rodney, laughing.  “Mr. Wheeler has really been very unkind in interfering with my plans.”

“I shan’t borrow any trouble, or lie awake nights thinking about it, Rodney.  I don’t care to see or think of that rascal again.”

The week passed, and the arrangement between Mr. Pettigrew and Rodney continued to their mutual satisfaction.  One morning, when Rodney came to the Continental as usual, his new friend said:  “I received a letter last evening from my old home in Vermont.”

“I hope it contained good news.”

“On the contrary it contained bad news.  My parents are dead, but I have an old uncle and aunt living.  When I left Burton he was comfortably fixed, with a small farm of his own, and two thousand dollars in bank.  Now I hear that he is in trouble.  He has lost money, and a knavish neighbor has threatened to foreclose a mortgage on the farm and turn out the old people to die or go to the poorhouse.”

“Is the mortgage a large one?”

“It is much less than the value of the farm, but ready money is scarce in the town, and that old Sheldon calculates upon.  Now I think of going to Burton to look up the matter.”

“You must save your uncle, if you can, Mr. Pettigrew.”

“I can and I will.  I shall start for Boston this afternoon by the Fall River boat and I want you to go with me.”

“I should enjoy the journey, Mr. Pettigrew.”

“Then it is settled.  Go home and pack your gripsack.  You may be gone three or four days.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

A CHANGE OF SCENE.

“Now,” said Mr. Pettigrew, when they were sitting side by side on the upper deck of the Puritan, the magnificent steamer on the Fall River line.  “I want you to consent to a little plan that will mystify my old friends and neighbors.”

“What is it, Mr. Pettigrew?”

“I have never written home about my good fortune; so far as they know I am no better off than when I went away.”

“I don’t think I could have concealed my success.”

“It may seem strange, but I’ll explain—­I want to learn who are my friends and who are not.  I am afraid I wasn’t very highly thought of when I left Burton.  I was considered rather shiftless.