"You needn't trouble yourself about supposing," said Dean coolly. "If I find the sleeve button belongs to your father, I shall be perfectly willing to give it up to him."
"Because you will have to."
"Put it that way if you want to. I don't care to keep what doesn't belong to me."
"How long have you had the sleeve button?"
"About a week."
When Brandon went home from school he lost no time in reporting the matter to his father.
"Papa," he said, "Dean Dunham's got a sleeve button of yours."
"What!" exclaimed Squire Bates nervously.
"One of the sleeve buttons marked 'B.' Did you know you had lost one of them?"
"No. So—the Dunham boy has got it?"