“Must be—I do declare!” he said, fumbling and staring. “This piece has the very scratches on it! I see! I see!”
“How is it? You said you gave this half-dollar to the goldsmith!” exclaimed Mrs. Chatford. “I don’t understand!”
“My plaguy absence of mind!” said the deacon, scratching his head with one hand while he held the coin in the palm of the other. “I must have put both half-dollars in my pocket, not thinking what I was about. Then—it was dark, you know—I gave the wrong one to the goldsmith! gave him Kate’s instead of Jack’s!”
“Then you came home and told Jack his half-dollar was a good one! O deacon! it’s you that have caused him all this trouble! He never would have quarrelled with the squire, he never would have broken into his house as he did, but for your strange mistake!”
“’Twas a plaguy blunder! Counterfeit, counterfeit, I’ll stake my life!” said the deacon, examining the coin in the bag. “Say nothing to anybody; but—See here, Moses! put it under the buggy-seat, and fling a blanket over it.”
“Now, deacon!” pleaded his wife, “do use a little more, I won’t say deception, but wisdom, more than you do sometimes! Don’t tell the squire at once all you know, for that will be just like you.”
“Think I haven’t any gumption?” cried the deacon.
“No, but you’re so honest, you never can use any sort of art or concealment, you know that! That’s very well in all ordinary business transactions; I wouldn’t have you cheat a body, for any consideration. But your blunder has got Jack into this scrape; and now don’t explain to the squire till you’ve got Jack out of it again.”
“As if I required to be told by a woman that a little shrewdness may be necessary sometimes in dealing with the world!” said the deacon. And, climbing into the buggy with unusual alacrity, he whipped away at an extraordinary rate of speed.