"When I took the tree to Guilfords' they was all tickled with it. They thought it was a 'beaut'! But the minute she saw it, she spotted it. And she went up there to the cemetery this afternoon, and when she saw one of her trees was gone, she came back there to the house and took on awful—!"
"Just a minute," his father interrupted. "Who is this 'she' you keep referring to?"
"Why, Nancy's aunt! M's Hotchkiss-Harger!"
"But what had she to do with the case?" his father persisted.
"Why, I cut the tree on her cemetery lot!"
Speechless with horror, Mr. and Mrs. Cane stared helplessly at each other, while Sube, with a feeling of unaccustomed security, laid bare the entire situation.
"Yes," he rattled on, "she spotted it right off. And when she asked me where I got it, I told her you cut it for me." He indicated his father by a movement of the head.
"You told her I cut it for you!" shrieked the stricken parent. "G-o-o-d Heavens!!"
It was with difficulty that Mr. Cane kept from laying violent hands on his son as he paced up and down the room excitedly exclaiming:
"What next!—What next!"