I could readily understand why this was so. My Uncle Felix almost worshiped his son, and to have any one insinuate that that son was a thief cut him to the heart. I believe he would rather have lost the six thousand dollars, greatly as he might have felt the loss, than to have imagined that Gus was the guilty party.
"My son a thief!" he repeated hotly. "How dare you?"
"Gus was the only one in the office besides myself," I replied.
"And that is the reason you lay the crime at his door? I don't believe a word you say."
I did not expect that he would. Gus was a favored son, while I was but an orphan with no one to stand up for me.
"Are you going to tell me what you have done with the money and the papers?" he demanded.
"How can I when I don't know anything of them?"
"You do know."
"I don't."
I hardly had the words out when my uncle grasped me roughly by the coat collar.