"You're a safe-cracker?" asked Mrs. Full, her pale face lengthening with horror, disgust, and fear. "A criminal?"
"In a manner of speaking, ma'am," said Tom Watkins, "I am."
"I'll be hanged," said Summersby. "And you accused me of stealing your loot. I ought to butter you all over the wall."
"You try it, you overgrown galoot. I didn't do a hitch in the Philippines for nothing." Watkins smoothed back his hair, which was dangling into his eyes. "Sure, I'm a safe man. Don't worry, Mrs. Full, that doesn't mean I'm a thug." She looked scared.
"That's right," said Adam, still chuckling. "This boy's the aristocracy of crime. You don't have to worry about your purse. He only plays around with big stuff."
Tom flipped him a grin. "I'll bet you even know why I was on the coaster."
"Sure. You were hiding out."
"That's it. If I kept out of sight till dark I was okay. They were out for me, because my touch is known; but who'd think of checking an amusement park?" He turned as Cal made a noise in his throat. The Vermonter was a study in outraged sensibilities.
"You—you swine," he said, a typical Victorian hero facing the mustache-twisting villain. "You stole that money—"
"My morals and your morals, Cal," said Watkins as genially as he could, "are probably divergent, but it doesn't make a whale of a difference now, does it?"