“I am not convinced that it is ‘all right,’ as you say, young man,” spoke Mrs. Prentice, eyeing Jess’s flushed face, suspiciously.
“Get it from behind the door there, Griff,” said the girl, hurriedly. She, too, had heard of such an incident as this. Perhaps the purse had been knocked from the counter into her open umbrella. But suppose it was not there?
CHAPTER IV—WHAT MRS. PRENTICE NEEDED
“Here it is! here’s the umbrella!” squeaked the officious Mr. Chumley, coming out from behind the entry door, where he had been listening.
All three of them—Jess, Griff, and the excited loser of the purse—reached for the umbrella; but Griff was the first.
“Hold on!” said he to the landlord. “Let me have that, sir. The purse was lost in our store. We’re just as much interested in the matter as anybody.”
“I fail to see that, young man,” said Mrs. Prentice, tartly.
She was not naturally of a mean disposition; but she was excited, and the explanation Griff had given her of the loss of the purse had seemed to her unimaginative mind “far-fetched,” to say the least.
The boy half opened the umbrella and turned it over. Crash to the floor fell the purse, and it snapped open as it landed. Out upon the linoleum rolled the glistening coins—several of them gold pieces—that Jess had noted so greedily in the egg store.
“What did I tell you?” cried Griff, looking at Mrs. Prentice.