"Richard, you understand that while circumstances may put you under a cloud for a brief time, if you are innocent of wrong doing, as I firmly believe, you have nothing to fear. Such a bold crime cannot be committed without the thief leaving some trace of his identity behind him. I shall doubtless find it necessary to send to the city for an officer to come up here and take up the investigation. You will not hesitate to tell him everything he wishes to know, will you?"
"I have nothing to hide, Mr. Gibbs. Some one certainly took those securities, and I would give a great deal to be the one to find them. I have told my mother all about this trouble, sir. Of course, she believes that it would be impossible for me to take anything that did not belong to me, and especially such valuable papers as these were; but she is my mother, you know, sir."
"Yes, I understand that, Richard. Of course the only temptation that might urge a boy, brought up as you have been, to do something of this sort would be the desire to place his mother beyond want. I have no doubt the officer will lay considerable stress upon the fact that you have found yourselves in straightened circumstances of late, and that you could not bear to see her suffer."
"That is all ended, sir," said Dick, smiling, for he knew what a bolt he was about to launch in another moment.
"How do you mean, Richard?" asked the president, curiously.
"We have come into some money, left by a relative in Boston so far removed that my mother hardly remembered her name, sir."
"What! come into some money? Indeed!" and the president, just as Dick expected, shot an alarmed glance across at Mr. Goodwyn, who also looked very serious.
"Yes, sir, and you can well believe that it was welcome, too," Dick went on.
"About how much did this sudden and surprising inheritance amount to, Richard?" coldly.
"We do not know yet, but it will bring something like a thousand dollars a year, which is enough to support us handsomely, sir," returned the boy, smiling now at the mysterious looks exchanged between the two gentlemen.