"Why do you speak of the Calais Noble? What do you know about it?"
"Not so much as you do," Roger replied significantly, with a ring of scorn in his honest voice. "Why do you try to deceive me? I know you couldn't have put the coin back in the cabinet as you said you would, or it wouldn't have been found in your clothes."
"Found in my clothes!" cried Edgar, feeling more and more surprised and frightened. "Oh, Roger, don't go home yet! Come for a walk with me where we shan't be disturbed, and tell me what you have found out."
"Well, I will, if you'll promise to tell no more stories," Roger said relentingly, "not otherwise."
Edgar promised earnestly that he would speak no word which was not absolutely true; and, accordingly, his cousin accompanied him down a side street which made a short cut into the road leading to the clay works, and there, perched by the side of Roger on a five-barred gate, he explained in faltering tones that he had been unable to put the Calais Noble back in its rightful place for the simple reason that he had lost it; whereupon Roger informed him how and where the coin had been found, after which there was silence for some minutes.
"I'm in a pretty bad fix," Edgar remarked dejectedly, at length, heaving a deep sigh.
"Why?" asked Roger. "I should think Uncle John will be very glad to get his Calais Noble back. Aren't you glad it's found?"
"N-o-o, I'd rather not have heard anything more about it. Of course father missed it, but I—I didn't tell him I'd taken it; he didn't ask me if I had, so I held my tongue."
Roger stared at his cousin with deepening amazement; then an expression of contempt crossed his face.
"Father would have been so dreadfully angry if he'd known I'd taken the Calais Noble to school and lost it," Edgar proceeded excusingly. "He never guessed I had anything to do with it, he thought it had been stolen."