“No, but yours is a peculiar case.”
“The money is mine—that is, I have a right to spend it. I am acting under orders from the gentleman who employs me.”
“Who is that?”
“No one that you would know. He lives at Cook’s Harbor. But I didn’t come in here to answer questions. If you don’t want to sell me a suit of clothes, I will go somewhere else.”
“To be plain with you, my boy,” said the stout gentleman, not unkindly, “we are afraid that you have no right to this money. The _Herald_ of this morning gives an account of a boy who has run away from a town in New Hampshire with three hundred dollars belonging to a farmer. You appear to be the age mentioned.”
“I never stole a dollar in my life,” said Robert indignantly.
“It may be so, but I feel it a duty to put you in charge of the police, who will investigate the matter. James, call an officer.”
Robert realized that he was in an unpleasant situation. It would be hard to prove that the money in his hands was really at his disposal.
Help came from an unexpected quarter.
A young man, fashionably dressed, had listened to the conversation of which Robert was the subject.