“Oh no,” said the Vicar. “It must out now. I suppose some one’s honour has gone a little astray.”
“Then we must fetch it back. Whose? Not yours, Tom?”
“I don’t know, uncle,” said the boy, with his forehead all wrinkled up. “Yes, I do. Mr Maxted thinks I went to his garden last night to steal plums. Tell him I didn’t, uncle, please.”
“Tell him yourself, Tom.”
“I can’t,” said Tom bluntly, and a curiously stubborn look came over his countenance. Then angrily—“Mr Maxted oughtn’t to think I’d do such a thing.”
The Vicar compressed his lips and wrinkled up his forehead.
“Well, I can,” said Uncle Richard. “No, Maxted, he couldn’t have stolen your plums, because he was out quite late stealing pears—the other way on.”
“Uncle!” cried Tom, as the Vicar now looked puzzled.
“We apprehended a visit from a fruit burglar, and Tom here and my gardener were watching, but he did not come. Then he visited you instead?”
“Yes, and dropped this knife on the bed beneath the wall.”