Lester's intense anxiety when Kendale forcibly took the keys from him and disappeared can better be imagined than described.
In vain he pleaded with Halloran to release him, offering every kind of inducement, but the man was inexorable.
Your Cousin Kendale will pay me twice as much for detaining you here," he answered with a boisterous laugh, adding:
"Besides, I have a grudge against you of many years' standing, Lester Armstrong, which this affair is wiping out pretty effectively."
"I was not aware that I had ever seen you before," replied Lester.
"Permit me to refresh your memory," exclaimed the other grimly. "When you were a boy of about fourteen years you attended the public school on Canal Street."
"Yes," said Lester, still mystified.
"At that time," went on Halloran, "the school was unusually crowded, owing to the enforcement of the law that the children of the neighborhood must attend school, thus bringing in all the urchins of the poor thereabouts; you surely remember that?"
"It seems to me I have a faint recollection of some such circumstance," replied Lester, eying the man who stood over him, his dark, scowling face growing more foreboding with each word he uttered.
"If you carry your mind back you will also remember that there was a ragged boy sitting to the right of you, who seemed to have a weakness for purloining your pencils and other like articles."