“Thirteen thousand dollars! Well, I guess not—scarcely. What are you talkin' about, Mr. Cabot? What is the joke?”
“I don't know. That's one of the things which, now that I am down here, I should like to find out. Somehow or other, since he has been on the Cape, he has managed to get rid of over thirteen thousand dollars. He SAYS he has given it to some of his mummy-hunting friends, but I am rather suspicious. He hasn't been organizing a clam trust, has he, Miss Phipps?”
Plainly, Martha did not know what to make of this speech. It was a joke, of course, but just where the point of the joke was located she was not sure. To her, thirteen thousand dollars was an enormous sum. The idea that her lodger, gentle, retiring little Galusha Bangs, possessed a half of that fortune was a joke in itself. But... And then she saw Galusha's face and the expression upon it.
“Why—why, Mr. Bangs!” she exclaimed.
Cabot turned and he, too, saw the expression. He burst out laughing.
“See!” he cried. “Doesn't he look guilty? It IS a clam trust, Miss Phipps. By Jove, Loosh, you are discovered! Galusha Bangs, the Clam King! Ha, ha, ha! Look at him, Miss Phipps! Look at him! Did you ever see a plainer case of conscious guilt? Ha, ha!”
He was enjoying himself hugely. And really Galusha was a humorous spectacle. He was very red in the face, he was trembling, and he appeared to be struggling for words and finding none.
“I—I insist,” he stammered. “I—I mean I protest. It is ridiculous—ah—ah—absurd! I—I—”
His cousin broke in upon him. “Ha, ha!” he cried. “The secret is out. And you gave me to understand the mummy-hunters had it. Oh, Galusha!”
Galusha made another attempt.