"No indeed!" she said. "It's only nine, Mr. Pippin. I don't hardly ever go up before half past. I'd be glad to hear anything you have to tell me."
"I don't know as you will!" Pippin spoke rather ruefully. "Be glad, I mean. I—I haven't been quite square with your Boss, Miss Flower. I haven't, that's a fact. No!" as Mary looked up, startled. "I don't mean I've told him anything that wasn't so. I believe it's all as I think and more so; but what I would say is, there's a heap I haven't told him. You see I—I dunno just how to put it—I felt to help him through this deal that I knew them fellers was puttin' up; and—and—what I would say—if I'd told him the whole of what there was to tell, mebbe he wouldn't have let me help. I'm doin' the right thing, young lady, no fears of that; the Lord showed me; but I'm scared, fear mebbe I ain't doin' it the right way. So I thought if I might tell you the way I was fixed—what say?"
"Certainly, Mr. Pippin! I'll be pleased to hear, as I said."
Mary laid down her work, and looked straight at Pippin with her honest blue eyes. That made Pippin blush and feel as if a blue knife had gone through him. To cover his confusion, he felt for his file, drew it out and whistled softly on it; then, seeing Mary's look change to one of open amazement, he fell into still deeper confusion.
"It's a file!" he explained. "I always carry it. It's handy—" He broke off short, and made a desperate plunge. "I wondered if—if you wondered—how I come to be so cocksure of that guy's bein' a crook. Did you?"
"Well!" Mary hesitated a moment. "Yes! I didn't doubt but you did know, but—yes, I did wonder some."
"That's what I've got to tell you. I've knowed that guy ever since we was little shavers. We was—you may say—raised together, for a spell; that is, we was learned together, anyway."
"You mean—you went to school together?"
Pippin leaned forward, his eyes very bright.