Mr. Crabb left the office with the satisfied feeling that he had the best of the encounter.. He would have felt gratified could he have known the increased respect with which he was regarded by the principal as a teacher who could command so lucrative an engagement in the great city of New York.
Before closing this chapter I must take notice of one circumstance which troubled Mr. Smith, and in the end worked him additional loss.
I have already said that Jim Smith, in appropriating his uncle’s wallet, abstracted therefrom a five-dollar bill before concealing it in Hector’s pocket.
This loss Mr. Smith speedily discovered, and he questioned Jim about it.
“I suppose Roscoe took it,” said Jim, glibly.
“But he says he did not take the wallet,” said Socrates, who was assured in his own mind that his nephew was the one who found it on the bureau. Without stigmatizing him as a thief, he concluded that Jim meant to get Hector into trouble.
“Wasn’t it found in his pants’ pocket?” queried Jim.
“Yes, but why should he take five dollars out of the wallet?”
“I don’t know.”
“It doesn’t look likely that he would!” said Socrates, eying Jim keenly.