“Thanks,” said Bob curtly. Such generous reserve was rather galling, coming from this quarter.
“I’m afraid you don’t mean that,” replied the other. “And it’s a bad habit to say what you don’t mean. However, we are drifting from the subject. You will pardon me for not swallowing, a capite ad calcem, that little Münchhausen explanation of yours.”
“I don’t care whether you swallow it head, neck and breeches, or not,” returned Bob. The other had taken a classical course at college, and Bob conceived he was ponderously trying to show off, just to be annoying. He was adopting a doubly irritating and classical manner of calling Bob a liar. And that young man was not accustomed to being called that—at least, of yore! Maybe he would have to stand it now. It seemed so. “You’re like a good many other people I’ve met lately,” said Bob, not without a touch of weariness as well as bitterness. “You don’t know the truth when you hear it.”
The hammer-thrower drew up his heavy shoulders. “No use abusing me, old chap,” he said in even well-poised tones. “Am I at fault for your unpopularity? Indeed”—as if arguing with himself in his slow heavy fashion—“I fail to understand why you have made yourself unpopular. You seem to have proceeded with deliberate intention. However, that is irrelevant. You say there was some one in your room, or rather the room you were supposed to have vacated; but to which you have unaccountably returned—not, I imagine, by way of the front door.” Severely. “And after entering in burglarious fashion you pursued a phantom. The phantom vanished, leaving you in a compromising position. You expect people to believe that?” Shaking his head.
“I should be surprised if they did,” answered Bob gloomily. “I suppose you’ll tell everybody to-morrow.”
“That’s the question,” said the other seriously. “What is my duty in the matter? I don’t want to do you an irreparable injury, yet appearances certainly seem to indicate that you—” He hesitated.
“Never mind the Latin for it,” said Bob. “Plain Anglo-Saxon will do. Call me a thief.”
“It’s an ugly word,” said the other reluctantly, “and—well, I don’t wish to be hasty. My father always told me to help a man whenever I could; not to shove him down. And maybe—” He paused. There was really a nice expression on his strong face.
“Oh, you think I may be only a young offender—a juvenile in crime?” exclaimed Bob bitterly.
“The words are your own,” observed the other. “To tell you the truth,” seriously, “I hardly know what to think. It is all too extraordinary—too unexpected. I’ll have to ponder on it. The profs, at college always said I had the champion slow brain. The peculiar part to me is,” that puzzled look returning to his heavy features, “I can’t understand why you’re making people think what they do of you? Frankly, I don’t believe you’re ‘dippy.’ You were always rather—just what is the word?—‘mercurial’—yes; that will do. But your head looks right enough to me.”