“What was in it?”
“Look here, Chick! Confound you! you’re getting too blamed inquisitive.”
But Chick straightened up as far as his deformed shoulders would permit, and thrust his hands determinedly into his pockets.
“I got to know,” he said.
There was apparently no escape, and the young lover, with scarlet face and stammering tongue, blurted out:
“Why, I told her I never loved any other girl as much as I did her. Does that satisfy you?”
Chick did not answer the question. Instead, he thrust one hand deeper into his pocket, drew forth the precious missive and handed it to the writer thereof, who, having glanced at it exteriorly and interiorly, gave a great sigh of relief. Then followed a shower of questions as to when, where and how the letter had been found, to all of which Chick not only gave complete and satisfactory answers, but he also entertained his listener with a full account of his own Sherlock Holmesian efforts in running down the writer.
At the conclusion of the narration young Lewis grasped the boy’s hand.
“Chick,” he declared, “you’ve saved my life. What if the other fellows had got onto it! They’d have made the town too hot to hold me. That job was worth money, Chick; yes, it was worth money.”