The Watermelon agreed. "Typical of the Street," he sneered. "Yah, it fairly reeks with the filth of money, your plan and mine."
"My plan?" Bartlett flushed and looked away. "Stung," said he humbly, and crumpled the telegram in his hand as he gazed moodily through the open door to the village street, impotent to refute the words of the Watermelon.
The Watermelon nodded without any undue elation, in fact, not thinking at all about Bartlett, he was too entirely absorbed in his own troubles.
"I suppose you are his partner—friend?" questioned Bartlett, after a moment's painful readjusting of ideas.
"No, I am a stranger. We met by chance, as you might say. I am a tramp."
"A tramp!" Bartlett's business chagrin vanished before the rush of his paternal alarm and surprise. "But, by heavens, man, I told Billy she could marry you."
The horror in his tones angered the Watermelon. The hot blood leaped into his face and his hands clenched.
"Well, why not?" he demanded. "I am a man if I am a tramp."
"Bah," sneered Bartlett. "A man? A cow, rather, an animal too lazy to work. I suppose you stole your clothes."
Both talked in low voices that the clerk, who only restrained himself from approaching by the exertion of tremendous will power, might not hear them. The Watermelon's face was very white, and he spoke slowly, carefully, as he retold the episode of the swimming-hole and the stolen car, still leaning against the varied assortment of dress goods. "I borrowed these clothes," he concluded, "to keep you away from New York for a week. That object may not sound original to you, and it wasn't. You were the one who suggested it to me through the telegraph clerk last Sunday."