"It won't be stealing, exactly. That man owes you something. If it hadn't been for him and his relative your father might have been rich and never got into any burglary. I have looked the ground over, and the job will be dead easy. There is a back alley and an iron fence that both of us can climb over without half trying. Then I can git a diamond cutter for the window glass, and the rest will be just as easy as wink."
"And if you are caught, what then?"
"We won't git caught, Nelson. The old man has only a niece living with him, a girl of seventeen or eighteen, and an old housekeeper who is half deaf. The rest of the help comes in the morning and leaves after supper."
There was another pause. Nelson sank beside the table, with his face in his hands. Suddenly he looked at Sam Pepper again.
"Did you say that man had robbed my father—I mean the man who shot him?"
"Sure he did, Nelson."
"Then perhaps my father wasn't a burglar, after all. Perhaps he was entering the house to get evidence against the man."
"No, he went in to—er—well, to steal, if you must have it straight."
"Sam Pepper, I don't believe you!"
"Nelson!"