The situation was serious for the lad. He wished he had been more careful, but he had been so engaged in thinking of the queer actions of Mr. and Mrs. Sandow, and in talking to Charley Grove, that he had given little thought to the money.
“Mr. Townsend will think I have stolen it, when I go to him in the morning, and say I’ve lost it,” murmured Tom. “I wish I had been more particular. Maybe there was a hole in my pocket.”
He looked, but there was none, for Mrs. Baldwin attended carefully to her son’s clothes.
“This is certainly a pickle!” exclaimed the boy to himself softly. “I wonder what I’d better do? Maybe if I go back the way I came I’ll find the envelope lying in the street. It was a good-sized, white one, and I can easily see it.”
“But maybe I dropped it in the car,” he added. “No, I don’t believe I could have done that, or some of the passengers or the conductor would have seen it on the floor, and told me about it. I must have lost it either before I got on the car, or afterward. I’ll walk back to where I met Charley, and see if it’s there.”
It was nearly eleven o’clock now, and as Tom looked up at the silent little house, where his mother and aunt were doubtless sleeping, he wondered if he had better go in and tell his parent about the loss, and inform her that he was going to look for the money.
“No, I’ll not do that,” he decided. “She’ll only worry about it, and she has troubles enough. I’ll hurry as much as I can, and get back as soon as possible. Still, if I’m not in by midnight she may worry too. But then I told her I was likely to be late any night now, for I might have to deliver books in the suburbs. I guess she won’t worry if I don’t go in right away.”
Deciding that this was the best plan, Tom descended the steps of his home, and hurried back over the route he had taken from the car. How eagerly he scanned the pavement, looking for that white, square envelope! Every scrap of paper he saw made his heart flutter, until he came close to it, and saw that it was not what he sought.
“Well, here’s where I took the car,” he said, as he reached the corner where he had alighted. “Either I didn’t drop it along this way, or if I did, some one has picked it up. Now for the second part of my search.”
He waited for a car to come along, to take him back to Dr. Spidderkins’ house, and it was a cold, lonesome wait for Tom, who felt quite miserable over what had happened. To his delight he saw on the car the same conductor with whom he had ridden about an hour before. The man was on the return trip.