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Though unburdened by his twenty millions, Young Dick never forgot them, and, fearing his estate might be distributed among remote relatives who might possibly inhabit New England, he warned his guardians that he was still alive and that he would return home in several years. Also, he ordered them to keep Mrs. Summerstone on at her regular salary. But Young Dick's feet itched.
Summerstone, the lady as you elect to call her, receives one hundred and fifty a month, eighteen hundred a year in round sum," said Mr. Crockett. "It's a waste of perfectly good money," Dick sighed. "And board and lodging thrown in!" He stood up not the born aristocrat of the generations, but the reared aristocrat of thirteen years in the Nob Hill palace.
Summerstone screamed a second time. It was when she shook hands with him and lacerated her tender skin in the fisty grip of his rope-calloused palms. He was shy, almost embarrassed, as he greeted his guardians at the hastily summoned meeting. But this did not prevent him from talking straight to the point. "It's this way," he said. "I am not a fool. I know what I want, and I want what I want.
At last, diving desperately into one, he managed to exchange for eight dollars and a ticket his gold watch that he knew was worth fifty at the very least. Dinner in the Nob Hill palace was served at six-thirty. He arrived at six-forty-five and encountered Mrs. Summerstone.
So he took his first long voyage, signing on as boy on a windjammer bound around the Horn from the Delaware Breakwater to San Francisco. It was a hard voyage, of one hundred and eighty days, but at the end he weighed ten pounds the more for having made it. Mrs. Summerstone screamed when he walked in on her, and Ah Sing had to be called from the kitchen to identify him. Mrs.
Dick did not wait for their acquiescence, but went on as from a matter definitely settled. "How about the horses down at Menlo? never mind, I'll look them over and decide what to keep. Mrs. Summerstone will stay on here in charge of the house, because I've got too much work mapped out for myself already. I promise you you won't regret giving me a free hand with my directly personal affairs.
"You see, Tim," he said, "I've got slathers of money. It's growing all the time, and I ain't spending a cent of it, not so as you can notice... though that Mrs. Summerstone is getting a cold eighteen hundred a year out of me, with board and carriages thrown in, while you an' I are glad to get the leavings of firemen's pails in the round-houses. Just the same, my money's growing.
"Here is dinner waiting fifteen minutes already, and you have not yet washed your face and hands." "I am sorry, Mrs. Summerstone," Young Dick apologized. "I won't keep you waiting ever again. And I won't bother you much ever."
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