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I LL BE BACK ! HE BURST OUT DETERMINEDLY
nounced defiantly ; ' ' the invention has got to be sold."
A half-grown, awkward boy entered the room, in the staring silence that followed Will's announcement.
"Here's Ben," the big man went on, relieved; "he'll take care of you."
"Willum" — the old lady's voice was almost sharp — "is this city trip goin' to take long?"
" 'Most a week, I guess; mebbe it'll "
He came to a dead stop, avoiding three frightened pairs of eyes.
"I'll be back!" he burst out determinedly. "Cilly, girl, look after ma, and spare her old hands all you can."
A film shot across the girl's eyes, and the lump in her throat nearly choked her ; but she said nothing, just took Will's hands and nodded brightly that she understood.
In another minute the women were busy over his carpet bag, and Will coiled the fortune-bringing saw-blade carefully within it, twining it tight and small.
On his wTay across the yard he turned now and then to wave them a good-by, then set his face resolutely down the road to the railroad station. The steel thing in his bag thumped exultingly. like the beat of his heart, and he felt his resolve coiled up tight.
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ready to leap and bite, like his saw, against the unknown in the city.
Two years passed — wonder-working years for Will — that found him rich and installed in fashionable apartments in the city. He had written his mother and Cilly at first every night from his hall bedroom in a shoddy furnished-room house; then once a week, as the money began to come; and now, not at all. It was simply a case of not having time, he told himself.
. The exploitation of his saw had been absurdly simple — a meeting with a pair of diamond-scarf-pinned brokers, the forming of a corporation — "William Carew, vice-president and general manager" — and the leasing of a luxurious suite of offices.
William's duties and their reward were also astonishingly free from complication — the signing of several green and gold certificates each day and the "president's" check for three figures at the end of each week. Outside of William's signature and his cheerful countenance, his presence in the office was not required, and he soon took the hint and proceeded to learn the ways of the city.
The call of the big fellow's ready money, and his rugged, open-air. good fellowship, made him friends, of