"I couldn't stand it. I had to go."
"Send him right in here," said he, throwing down his pen, and the words were hardly out of his mouth when in came Shorty, bounding, breathless, excited, and with snapping eyes. "Ha, lad! So you've heard from Lawton! What does he say?" And trembling, rejoicing, triumphing, yet troubled, the youngster read from a letter in his hand.
Dear Shorty,—I couldn't stand it. I had to go, and, please God, I'll never come back, only I want you to know the reason and you won't blame me much. I begged Halsey not to tell the Doctor or anybody what that low sneak of a janitor told him. It's no disgrace to be so poor that a fellow has to pawn his old books and things to get shoes, and you know how I was fixed; you know that I was on my bare feet, almost, and that my clothes wouldn't cover me. I couldn't ask a penny of Aunt Lawrence, and they didn't seem to see or care how I looked. I couldn't worry mother any more, so what was there to do? They gave me a shilling apiece for the school-books, and then I took over my Marryats—I hadn't even read some of 'em—and got twenty cents apiece, and finally father's old shotgun. It was mine; mother had given it to me. It was no use to me. Why shouldn't I sell it and buy clothes? I didn't know it was so costly and valuable, but Aunt Lawrence says now it was worth one hundred and fifty dollars. It came from London. I thought I was lucky to get seven dollars for it. Of course old Binny saw me one night ["Binny is the butler," explained Shorty. "He hated both of us, I suppose, having to answer door so much,—Aunt Lawrence wouldn't let Snipe have a key">[, and I guess he must have sneaked after me; but when Halsey told me it was known I visited the pawnbroker's (it wasn't a pawnbroker's. It was just a second-hand store), and demanded to know what I'd sold, and talked of the disgrace and all that, and hinted things about Joy's watch and other missing items I never even heard of, I told him the whole thing, and begged him not to make trouble for me,—I had enough. But he said the Doctor must know, and the Doctor sent me round with him and I showed him the shop, and he rowed the man in charge and said my aunt must be told at once. You never heard such a row as she made,—the shame and the disgrace I'd brought on them all. She could never show her face in society again. Selling my father's books! my father's beautiful gun, that my poor mother had so proudly intrusted to me! Why, Shorty, she drove me nearly mad. Even Halsey tried to stop her after a while, and to say it didn't begin to be as bad as she made it, but she ordered me to my room, and then came up and jawed until I was near crazy, and then when she'd talked herself out up comes Cousin Maud, and she just belched fire and brimstone for an hour; and after dinner that night Uncle Lawrence,—why, he never so much as noticed me generally, and you know how he used to pass us on the street and never see us,—he went on at a perfectly infernal rate. I was an ingrate and a thief and a consorter with the lowest order of humanity (rough on you that was, Shorty), and when he got through I'm blessed if they didn't wind up by sending my little cousin, Queenie,—I always liked her,—but she went on and preached about disgrace and shame just like Aunt Lawrence, and how good they'd all been to me, and how shocking was my ingratitude! She supposed I spent the money in liquor and cigars for my rowdy friends (I did stand treat to milk and custard pie as much as twice); and then Aunt Lawrence comes up again, and read me what she'd written to mother, and that was the last pound. I had five dollars left that I was saving for some clothes, and planning to sell the old watch and get the rest of the money I needed, but she took that away, lest I should steal that too, she said, and I was to be sent back to Rhinebeck as soon as mother could be heard from. She'd been to the Doctor and told him I don't know what, and came back and said the Doctor and teachers as much as declared they thought me the thief that stole Joy's watch. She told me to go and say good-by to you and confess everything, but I shall never disgrace the home where I was so kindly welcomed by setting foot inside its doors again. I've started out for myself, Shorty, dear old boy, and I'll make a living, never you fear, and I'll write to you sometimes when I can do so without being followed or found out. Don't let the fellows think too mean of me. Here's the one thing I've got to confess, and you tell it to Seymour. I found his pencil under the fourth bench that afternoon Beach kept me in two hours for welting Beekman with a putty-ball, and instead of giving it to Beach, as the rule is, I stuck it in my pocket and never thought of it again until next morning, just as I got to school and saw Seymour. I hunted in my pocket and it was gone. I ran home at recess and hunted everywhere, and asked the girl who makes believe do up my room, but couldn't find a trace of it. That was two weeks ago, and all this time I've been hoping to find it, or when I got the money on the watch to buy him another and tell him the whole story. Now I can't do either.
Good-by, Shorty, dear old fellow! Say good-by to Bonner and Hank and Keating and Joe Hutton. Forty's boys were always kind to us, weren't they? And if any of the class feel that I am not altogether a disgrace to them, give them a bit of love, from yours till death.
Snipe.
The little reader was almost sobbing when he got through, but the Doctor was on his feet and listening in undisguised interest and sympathy.
"But that pencil was found among those things Mr. Park brought to the school!" he exclaimed. Then, as a sudden light seemed to flash over the case, he took the missive in his big, white hand and pored over the last two of its many pages. "You have shown this to——?" he began.
"Nobody, sir. Nobody was at home. I brought it right to you."
"Then leave it with me and say nothing about it till I tell you. I will see your grandfather to-morrow."
