"He's not what I call a white man," explained Jimmy, dogged and slow, as if to justify his vision of assault. "He's a painted pup."
"Come, Jimmy!" Phil commanded. "Out with it! Hunt and I know he's been annoying Susan, but that's all we know. I supposed he might have been pressing his attentions too publicly. If it's more than that——"
There was an unusual sternness in Phil's eye. Jimmy appealed from it to mine, but in vain.
"Look here, Mr. Hunt," he blurted, "Susan's all right, of course—and so's Miss Goucher! They've got their eyes open. And maybe it's not up to me to say anything. But if I was in your place, I'd feel like giving two or three people down there a piece of my mind! Susan wouldn't thank me for saying so, I guess; she's modern—she likes to be let alone. Why, she laughed at me more than once for getting sort of hot! And I know I've a bunch to learn yet. But all the same," he pounded on, "I do know this: It was a dirty trick of Mr. Phar's not to stand up for Susan!"
"Not stand up for her! What do you mean?" Phil almost barked.
"Jimmy means, Phil," I explained, "that some rather vague rumors began not along ago to spread through Maltby's crowd in regard to Susan—as to why she found it advisable to leave New Haven. Many of his friends know me, of course—or know Gertrude; know all about us, at any rate. It's not very remarkable, then, that Susan's appearance in New York—and so far as Maltby's May-Flies know, in some sense under his wing—has set tongues wagging. I was afraid of it; but I know Maltby's set well enough to know that to-day's rumor, unless it's pretty sharply spiced, is soon forgotten. To-morrow's is so much fresher, you see. The best thing for innocent victims to do is to keep very still. And then, I confess, it seemed to me unlikely that Maltby would permit anything of the sort to go too far."
I saw that Jimmy was following my exposition with the most painful surprise. Phil grunted disgustedly as I ended.
"I don't pretend to much knowledge of that world," he said deliberately, "but common sense tells me Maltby Phar might think it to his advantage to fan the flame instead of stamping it out. I may be unfair to him, but I'm even capable of supposing he touched it off in the first place."
"No, Phil," I objected, "he wouldn't have done that. But you seem to be right about his failing to stamp out the sparks. That's what you meant by his not standing up for Susan, isn't it, Jimmy?"
The boy's face was a study in unhappy perplexity. "I guess I'm like Professor Farmer!" he exclaimed. "I'm not on to people who act like that. But, Mr. Hunt, you're dead wrong—excuse me, sir!"