“Yes, yes, I remember; but I referred to the disappearance of the boy I engaged at the time you applied for the position.”
“Why, isn’t he here?” asked Mortimer, feigning surprise.
“No, he hasn’t been here today.”
“What do you imagine is the trouble?”
“I do not know, unless, like so many other boys, he has got tired of the work, and has left it for some other position.”
“That may be, and now you speak of it, I remember he said, the morning we were all waiting to see you, that if he failed to get this place he had another position in view that he could get, and that it would pay him five dollars a week.”
Young Mortimer told this falsehood with the ease of a veteran. His manner could not have been more impressive had he been telling the truth.
“Five dollars a week!” exclaimed Mr. Goldwin. “And he came here for three. I don’t see what his motive was.”
“Perhaps he had a motive,” suggested Mortimer.
“I don’t understand you,” replied the banker.