“Why, who was his father?” asked another indolent voice. “What did he do?”
Gerald was a boy of delicate honor. He was about to hurry away, eager as he was to sympathize with his attractive “guardian’s” trouble. He scorned to play the eavesdropper, and he equally scorned to be told this secret until Philip would utter it. But before he could step to the soft turf, and so slip out of ear-shot, Philip Touchtone himself came up beside him. Philip had stepped with unintentional lightness to the bench where he had left his little protégé and caught the last clearly spoken sentences.
Gerald would have drawn him away, too; but Philip took the hand of the younger boy and made a sign to him to remain and hear what General Sawtelle would reply. He put his finger upon his lips.
“Why,” responded the general, from within this arbor, “his father was Touchtone—Reginald Touchtone—who was so badly involved in the famous robbery of the Suburban Trust Company, years ago, in X——, just outside of New York.”
“O,” returned the other speaker, “I remember. Touchtone was the cashier.”
“Yes; the man that turned out to be a friend of the gang that did the business,” another speaker chimed in.
“Certainly. They were sure that the scamp opened the safe for them. They made out a clear case against him. He went to the penitentiary with the rest of ’em.”
Gerald was trembling, and held Philip’s cold hand as the two lads stood there to hear words so humiliating to one of them. But Philip whispered, “Don’t go!” and still restrained him.
“Yes, it was as plain as daylight. The fellow opened the safe for the rogues! At first the indictment against him was rather shaky. He was tried, and got off with a light sentence; only a year or so, I believe.”