"You will hear from me!" he said, savagely, as he jammed his hat down upon his head, and hastily left the apartment. "Aaron Wolverton is not the man to give in to fraud."
Neither Bob nor his mother answered him, but Mrs. Burton asked anxiously, after his departure:
"Do you think he will do anything, Bob?"
"No, mother; he sees that he is in a trap, and will think it wisest to let the matter drop."
This, in fact, turned out to be the case. Mortifying as it was to give in, Wolverton did not dare to act otherwise. He would have given something handsome, mean though he was, if he could have found out, first, who saw him rob the dead man, and next, who extracted the stolen receipt from his desk. He was inclined to guess that it was Bob in both cases. It never occurred to him that Clip was the eye-witness whose testimony could brand him with this contemptible crime. Nor did he think of Sam in connection with his own loss of the receipt. He knew Sam's timidity, and did not believe the boy would have dared to do such a thing.
All the next day, in consequence of his disappointment, Mr. Wolverton was unusually cross and irritable. He even snapped at his sister, who replied, with spirit:
"Look here, Aaron, you needn't snap at me, for I won't stand it."
"How will you help it?" he sneered.
"By leaving your house, and letting you get another housekeeper. I can earn my own living, without working any harder than I do here, and a better living, too. While I stay here, you've got to treat me decently."
Wolverton began to see that he had made a mistake. Any other housekeeper would cost him more, and he could find none that would be so economical.