CHAPTER XXXIV — PHILIP GETS RID OF HIS PLUNDER
“Philip,” said his mother, at the breakfast table the next morning, “the servant tells me she found the outside door unlocked this morning. Didn’t I ask you to lock it before you went to bed?”
“So you did, mother. I really hope you’ll excuse me. When I got ready to go to bed, I forgot all about it.”
“It might have proved serious,” remarked his father, “for I found this morning that I had left my bunch of keys on my desk. I don’t see how I came to be so negligent.”
“It’s lucky no burglar or dishonest person knew of it,” said Mrs. Ross. “You might have met with a serious loss.”
“So I might, for I had about a thousand dollars’ worth of government bonds in my trunk, besides certificates of various kinds of stock. The latter would have done no one any good, though the loss would have annoyed me, but the government bonds might readily be sold.”
“I shouldn’t think you’d keep the trunk downstairs, father,” said Philip, who felt easy, as there seemed no likelihood of suspicion being fixed upon him.
He resolved so to act as to divert any future suspicion.
“I don’t know but it is imprudent,” said Colonel Ross.
“Of course it is,” said his wife. “You deserve to suffer loss.”