“The name,” Thompson said, slowly, his eyes fixed on Tommy's, “was Thomas Francis Leigh.” Tommy looked at Thompson in such utter amazement that Thompson looked serious. He hated mysteries, and this mystery doubly irritated him because it concerned his company, and because it concerned one of his pet experiments.
“I see you really don't, know what it means. But can't you guess?”
“No, sir,” answered Tommy. “Perhaps Colonel Willetts has written to me about it, but I haven't received the letter. Shall I telegraph him? I can't understand it, Mr. Thompson.” Tommy was no longer alarmed, only mystified. And he was conscious, notwithstanding the confusion in his mind, of an all-pervading feeling of relief.
Thompson rose from his chair and stood up beside Tommy. “Now, Tommy,” he said, “go over the whole thing in your mind from the beginning, step by step.”
Feeling himself reinstated by the use of his first name, Tommy became calm. “I can't see why he should do it unless he wants to make me personally responsible in some way—”
Thompson shook his head. “It isn't that, Tommy. Would he make you a present of the stock? You know your personal relations with him and his family. He is a very rich man, I understand. The other two hundred shares are to be made out to Rivington Willetts and Marion Willetts.”
Tommy thought of how Marion had interested herself in the matter; but not more so than Rivington. The colonel might have given to Tommy a hundred shares; but even so, ten thousand dollars was too big a gift, let alone a hundred and eighty thousand.
“I don't think it possible. I am sure it isn't a gift. He, moreover, promised to interest other friends of mine. I can't understand it.”
“Tommy, discard obvious impossibilities, but remember that the improbable is always possible. Think calmly. Take your time and don't look so infernally troubled. Because somebody has transferred a block of stock to you is no sign you have committed a crime.”
Tommy started electrically. He recalled his father's vehement desire that his son should not fail to place the stock, his visit to Colonel Willetts's office, notwithstanding Tommy's urgent requests for non-intervention, his insane determination to have Tommy succeed. He remembered also Colonel Willetts's early confession that the deal did not interest him in a business way, and his inexplicable good nature at the second interview; his promise that he would himself see that the stock was apportioned later among Tommy's friends' fathers; the utter unbusinesslike quality of the entire affair. It was all plain to Tommy now. There was only one explanation. His quick imagination proceeded to dramatize it. Then, boy-like, he melodramatized it.