It was pretty dark out there, as the night had settled down, and not much light escaped from the windows close by; still Tom thought he saw the other boy move uneasily when he said this.
“That’s a funny thing for you to say, Tom Chesney,” grumbled the other. “How’d I be able to help Mrs. Oskamp out, tell me? I ain’t much of a hand to figger sums. That’s why I hated school, and run away, so I had to go to work. Now what you drivin’ at anyhow? Just tell me that.”
“Day before yesterday you called at Mrs. Oskamp’s house, Dock, as you do every morning, to take orders. You always make it about the same time, I understand, which is close to a quarter after nine.”
“Oh! I’m the promptest grocery clerk you ever saw!” boasted Dock, perhaps to hide a little confusion, and bolster up his nerve.
“After you had gone, or to make it positive at just a quarter to ten Mrs. Oskamp, who had dressed to go out, missed something that was on the table of the sitting room where you came for orders, and which she says she knows was there when you first arrived!”
“What’s this you’re a-sayin’, Tom Chesney? Want to make me out a thief, do you? Better go slow about that sort of talk, I tell you!” blustered Dock, aggressively. “Did Mrs. Oskamp see me take anything?”
“Oh! no, certainly not,” continued Tom; “but she had to go upstairs to get a bill she wanted you to take back to the store for correction, and left you alone in the room for a couple of minutes, that’s all.”
Tom was fishing for a “rise,” as he would have put it himself, being something of an angler; and he got it too. All unsuspicious of the trap that had been spread for his unwary feet Dock gave a harsh laugh, and went on to say angrily:
“You have got the greatest nerve I ever heard about, Tom Chesney, a-comin’ here right to my own home, and accusin’ me of bein’ a reg’lar thief. I wouldn’t take a thing for the world. Besides, what’d I want with a silly old scrap of paper, tell me?”
“Oh!” said Tom, quietly, “but I never mentioned what it was that was taken. How do you happen to know then it was a paper, Dock?”