“But you’ll let us say that you’re in this big business, won’t you? When we get back home we want to tell all of ’em that they’d better not slur you any more.”
“I suppose the backbiters have been busy, eh?”
“Oh, not much nowadays except somebody remarks once in a while that you had to skip the town. You know how such things pop up in talk. Your uncle being prominent nowadays, you get mentioned once in a while. But Dodovah Vose has always stood up for you!”
“And a lot of folks didn’t believe what that detective said. He wasn’t a real detective, anyway. He was only a deputy sheriff from Pownal,” added Ardon, and the next minute I felt like hugging the boy. “I was always ashamed of how us fellows put you in bad, Ross, and so I owned up when Celene Kingsley asked me—”
I couldn’t help it! I came right up in my chair. “Celene Kingsley asked you?”
He misunderstood my heat.
“Don’t be mad, Ross! I stood up for you, I say! I was sorry for what I did. I was ashamed.”
“But you said Celene Kingsley asked you something!”
“Well, I can’t remember whether she came right to me and asked me or whether it just happened that the thing came up somewhere or—”
“But you would surely remember if she came to you!” I could not conceive of Celene coming to anybody without it marking a mile-stone in life.