"'Deed, you couldn't, Jimmy," replied Nan, soothingly. "I don't know what I should have done this morning without him, Theo. He was my right hand man."
Jimmy coloured with satisfaction at this high praise, and his delight was complete when Theodore added,
"That so? Well now, Jimmy boy, I ain't goin' to forget this."
"Huh! Twarn't nothin'. I liked to do it," replied Jimmy, and then overcome by a sudden and unaccountable fit of bashfulness he ran hastily out of the room.
Then Theodore told Nan the details of his adventure, but not even to her would he tell the name of his enemy, and Nan did not guess, for she would never have imagined that Mrs. Hunt's Dick could have served Theo so.
Dick had gone out as usual after breakfast and did not come home even to get his supper, but of late his habits had been so irregular that nothing was said at home about his absence.
After supper Jimmy was sent out on an errand and Dick met him and questioned him in regard to Theo's return, and what he had to say. Jimmy waxed indignant over the story which he filled in from his own imagination with many vivid details.
"Some fellers pitched into him an' knocked him down an' beat him an' left him for dead an' they took him t' the hospital an' kep' him there all night. Guess them fellers'll suffer for it! They robbed him, too. Took five dollars out o' his pockets."
"They didn't neither!" exclaimed Dick, hastily, thrown off his guard by this unexpected statement.
"Come now, Dick Hunt, mebbe you know more'n I do about it," retorted Jimmy, with withering sarcasm, little suspecting how much more his brother did know. "Mebbe you heard what Nan said to ma 'bout it."