“I am the constable, as I said before, and I consider it very suspicious that you should be visited by a man who had a bag that jingled, at midnight.”
“Why shouldn’t it jingle at midnight?” said I with a desperate attempt to impart a tone of lightness to the conversation. “If I choose to give a meal to a wayfarer with a jingling bag, I suppose it is my own concern.”
“Mist. Vernon, he warn’t no tramp. He was a good dresser,” said Minerva, looking at me reproachfully.
“Was—this—man—a—friend—of—yours—or—not?” asked the constable doggedly.
“He was a friend of mine last night,” said I, thinking of the debt of gratitude I felt I owned him when he went away.
“Did you suspect him of being a thief?” said the constable, in such a casual way that without thinking I said “Yes.”
Minerva’s arms had been folded on her breast. They dropped to her side. Ethel slipped behind the constable and went into the parlour—to cool her red cheeks, I suppose.
It was certainly a very unpleasant position for both of us, and I felt that my white lies were coming home to roost way ahead of roosting time.
“Did he give you a part of the spoils as a reward for having fed him?”
“No, sir.” This indignantly.