“If I did I wouldn’t ask you,” snapped Agnes. “Mean old thing!”
“Hul-lo!” ejaculated Joe. “Who’s mean?”
“Not you, Joe,” the girl said sweetly. “But that Neale O’Neil. He went off without saying a word to any of us.”
“Close mouthed as an oyster, Neale is. But I asked him what was in the bag, and what d’ you s’pose he said?”
“I don’t know,” returned the girl, idly.
“He said: ‘Either a hundred thousand dollars or nothing.’ Now! what do you know about that?” demanded Joe, chuckling.
“What!” gasped Agnes, sitting straight up and staring at her companion.
“I guess if he’d been lugging such a fortune around it would have been heavy,” added Joe, with laughter.
Agnes was silenced. For once the impulsive Corner House girl was circumspect. Neale’s answer to Joe could mean but one thing. Neale must have carried away with him the old album she had found in the garret of the Corner House.
“Goodness gracious!” thought Agnes, feeling a queer faintness within. “It can’t be that Neale O’Neil really believes that money and the bonds are good! That is too ridiculous! But, if not, what has he carried the book away with him for?