"They said that they were going to square up with Dora and with Mrs. Stanhope, and said they would square up with us, too, and in a way we little expected. Grace wrote that Sobber pulled a big roll of bank bills out of his pocket and flourished it in her face. 'Do you see that?' he asked. 'Well, I can get more where that came from, and I am going to use that and more, too, just to get even with the Rovers. I'm getting my trap set for them, and when they fall into it they'll wish they had never been born! I'll blow them and their whole family sky-high, that's what I'll do.'"
"Sobber said that?" asked Dick, slowly.
"So Grace writes. No wonder she and Dora were scared to death."
"Oh, maybe he was only blowing, especially if he had been drinking too much," came from Tom.
"I don't know about that," answered Dick, with a long sigh. "With such a rascal at liberty, and with money in his pocket there is no telling what will happen."
"What do you suppose he meant by blowing us sky-high?" asked Tom. But this question was not answered, for at that moment Mrs. Rover came into the room, and the course of the conversation had to be changed,—the lads not wishing to worry her with their new troubles.
