"Had a fine time with Minnie," he declared—"best time I ever had in my life. I tell you, Sam, she's a wonderful girl."
"So she is, Songbird."
"Of course, you don't think she's half as wonderful as Grace," went on the would-be poet of Brill; "but, then, that's to be expected."
"How did Mr. Sanderson treat you?" broke in Sam, hastily, to shift the subject.
"Oh, he treated me better than he did before." Songbird's face sobered for a minute. "To be sure he feels dreadfully sore over the loss of that four thousand dollars. But I assured him that I and the authorities were doing all in our power to get the money back, and I also assured him that if it wasn't recovered I expected to pay it back just as soon as I could earn it. Of course he thinks I am talking through my hat about earning such a big amount, but just the same I am going to do it just as soon as I graduate from Brill. I'd go to work to-morrow instead of staying here if it wasn't that I had promised my folks that I would graduate from Brill, and as near the top of my class as I could get. If I left now, my mother would be heartbroken."
"Of course your folks know about the loss, Songbird?"
"Yes. I wrote them the whole particulars just as soon as I could, and I've let them know what we are doing now."
"Do they blame you for the loss?"
"My father thinks I might have been a little more careful, but my mother says she thinks it is Mr. Sanderson's fault that he let me get such an amount of money in cash and carry it on such a lonely road. But dad is all right, and in his last letter he said he could let Mr. Sanderson have a thousand dollars if that would help matters out."
"Had Mr. Sanderson heard any more from old Grisley, or Belright Fogg?"