As a matter of fact, days went by without the question coming up.
Wagg had previously praised himself as a patient waiter; the young man confessed in his thoughts that his guardian merited the commendation. Wagg was plainly having a particularly good time on this outing. He displayed the contentment of a man who had ceased to worry about the future; he was taking it easy, like a vacationer with plenty of money in the bank. On one occasion he did mention the money in the course of a bit of philosophizing on the situation:
“I suppose that, when you look at it straight, it's stealing, what I'm doing. I've seen a lot of big gents pass through that state prison, serving sentences for stealing. Embezzlement, forgery, crooked stock dealing—it's all stealing. They were tempted. I've been tempted. I've fell. I ain't an angel, any more than those big gents were. And you know what I told you about mourners chirking up, after the first blow! I figure it's the same way in the bank case. They have given up the idea of getting the money back. They're still sad when they think about it, but they keep thinking less and less every day. They've crossed it off, as you might say.”
The two who were bound in that peculiar comradeship were out on the crag where they could look down upon the distant checker board of the village. Vaniman, in the stress of the circumstances, wondered whether he might be able to come at Wagg on the sentimental side of his nature.
“The little town must have gone completely broke since the bank failure. Innocent people are suffering. If that money could be returned—”
He did not finish the sentence. Mr. Wagg was most distinctly not encouraging that line of talk.
“Look here, Vaniman, when you got away with that money you had hardened yourself up to the point where you were thinking of your own self first, hadn't you?”
The young man did not dare to burst out with the truth—not while Wagg was in the mood his expression hinted at.
Wagg continued: “Well, I've got myself to the point where I'm thinking of my own self. I'm as hard as this rock I'm sitting on.” In his emphasis on that assertion Wagg scarred his knuckles against the ledge. “After all the work I've had in getting myself to that point, I'm proposing to stay there. If you try to soften me I shall consider that you're welching on your trade.”
Wagg made the declaration in loud tones. After all his years of soft-shoeing and repression in a prison, the veteran guard was taking full advantage of the wide expanses of the big outdoors.