He paused. He was saying far more than he should and he realized it.
“Oh, well!” he ended, scornfully. “What is the use? I don’t want your letters or money or any other favors. I am going away. Let that satisfy you. It ought to.”
He turned his back upon the caller. Foster Townsend rose to his feet.
“All right, Griffin,” he said. “Your business isn’t mine, of course. Now, then, there is something which is my business, in a way, and before you put me off on the other tack we were talking about it. I’d like to have you tell me just where it was you found Seymour the other night. We are going to take him up to the Boston hospital in a day or so—to-morrow maybe—and his father will meet us there. He will want particulars. Where was he when you found him?”
Here was where Bob’s story was to have begun its deviation from the truth. He had intended saying that he came upon the span, and Covell, at a point on the main road just beyond the livery stable. Now there was no such idea in his head. Why should he lie to this man? He would not.
“What difference does it make where I found him?” he said. “I did find him and I brought him home. That is all I care to tell about it.”
Townsend rubbed his beard. “Humph!” he observed. “So that’s all, eh? Why?”
“Because—well, because I choose to make it so.”
“That’s kind of funny, seems to me. Griffin, there is a lot of whispering going about; did you know it? From what I hear you haven’t told any one the whole story. Don’t you think you had better tell it to me?”
“No.”