“The same way as foxes do with the farmers’ chickens,” said Uncle Richard, smiling.
“Uncle, it is too serious to laugh at,” cried Tom indignantly. “Sam Brandon is your own nephew.”
“Yes, Tom, and all you say is in vain. I have punished him severely for a cruel, cowardly robbery.”
“But you’ll do no more, uncle?” cried Tom. “Humph! Well, no, I think I may say that I shall do no more. Possibly I shall never see him again.”
“Ah, I don’t mind that, uncle,” cried Tom anxiously. “But tell me—how—what you have done. I would not speak to anybody, and kept it all so quiet till you came, uncle, because of that. You—you haven’t put it in the hands of the police?”
“How could I, my boy, when I knew nothing of the robbery until you told me this morning?”
“But you said you had punished him, uncle.”
“So I have—cruelly.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Tom, with his brow puckered-up, and some of the old ideas about his uncle’s sanity creeping back into his mind.
“I suppose not, Tom; but I have punished your cousin all the same—unconsciously of course.”