“There’s something fishy behind it, mark my words. I wish we could find out what it is.”
“Perhaps we shall,” said Tony. “But anyhow, I’m not going into a grouch over the affair.”
“Nobody wants you to, but I wish you would show a little more sense of the rotten way you have been treated. By Jove, Tonio, I have it! it’s the Gumshoe!”
Tony found no answer to this exclamation, but Jimmie, excited by his theory, did not wait for one. “D’ye remember Reggie Carroll telling us that the Gumshoe would get even?”
“When?”
“Why, after the show-up he got when you and Kit licked Ducky Thornton and he took you two to the Head for breaking his gating. And also after the time Gumshoe soured on you about the Soft-toed Sammy billet-doux.”
“Yes, I remember something of the sort. Perhaps he is responsible. But anyway, kiddo, I’m dished, and that’s a fact.”
“Oh, that Kit was one of us now, boy; wouldn’t we get even?”
Tony sighed. “I reckon we would. But he isn’t!”
“No, worse luck! I wish——”