"Why, no. He just looked—oh—oh, you know, Uncle Jed—MYSter'ous— that's how he looked, MYSter'ous."
"Hum! Well, I'm glad to know he wan't crazy. I've known him a good many years and this is the first time I ever knew him to GIVE anybody anything worth while. When I went to school with him he gave me the measles, I remember, but even then they was only imitation—the German kind. And now he's givin' away candy: Tut, tut! No wonder he looked—what was it?—mysterious. . . . Hum. . . . Well, he wanted somethin' for it, didn't he? What was it?"
"Why, he just wanted to know if I'd heard Uncle Charlie say anything about a lot of money being gone up to the bank. He said he had heard it was ever and ever so much—a hundred hundred dollars—or a thousand dollars, or something—I don't precactly remember, but it was a great, big lot. And he wanted to know if Uncle Charlie had said how much it was and what had become of it and—and everything. When I said Uncle Charlie hadn't said a word he looked so sort of disappointed and funny that it made me laugh."
It did not make Jed laugh. The thought that the knowledge of the missing money had leaked out and was being industriously spread abroad by Bearse and his like was very disquieting. He watched Phillips more closely than before. He watched Ruth, and, before another day had passed, he had devised a wonderful plan, a plan to be carried out in case of alarming eventualities.
On the afternoon of the third day he sat before his workbench, his knee clasped between his hands, his foot swinging, and his thoughts busy with the situation in all its alarming phases. It had been bad enough before this new development, bad enough when the always present danger of Phillips' secret being discovered had become complicated by his falling in love with his employer's daughter. But now— Suppose the boy had stolen the money? Suppose he was being blackmailed by some one whom he must pay or face exposure? Jed had read of such things; they happened often enough in novels.
He did not hear the door of the outer shop open. A month or more ago he had removed the bell from the door. His excuse for so doing had been characteristic.
"I can't stand the wear and tear on my morals," he told Ruth. "I ain't sold anything, except through the mail, since the winter really set in. And yet every time that bell rings I find myself jumpin' up and runnin' to wait on a customer. When it turns out to be Gabe Bearse or somebody like him I swear, and swearin' to me is like whiskey to some folks—comfortin' but demoralizin'."
So the bell having been removed, Jed did not hear the person who came into and through the outer shop. The first sign of that person's presence which reached his ears was an unpleasant chuckle. He turned, to see Mr. Phineas Babbitt standing in the doorway of the inner room. And—this was the most annoying and disturbing fact connected with the sight—the hardware dealer was not scowling, he was laughing. The Winslow foot fell to the floor with a thump and its owner sat up straight.
"He, he, he!" chuckled Phineas. Jed regarded him silently. Babbitt's chuckle subsided into a grin. Then he spoke.
"Well," he observed, with sarcastic politeness, "how's the great Shavin's Jedidah, the famous inventor of whirlagigs? He, he, he!"