"But you've only worked a day. You haven't been paid already?"
"Sure. I hands de boss a piece o' talk: me mudder's sick, an' I needs ready coin bad. So he pays me a dollar ev'ry day."
David made a mental note that later there must be a few more remarks on the subject of lying; but this was not the time to reprove Tom's fib. He took the boy's hand in his hot, weak grasp. "You're mighty good to me, Tom," he said, huskily.
Tom's face slipped to one side and twitched. His blinking eyes avoided David's gaze. "Oh, dat's nuttin'," he gruffly returned. "Nobody goes back on his pal."
At the end of the first week of David's illness Kate Morgan returned home, having given up her position, and thenceforward she prepared most of his meals, chatted much with him, and lent him ten-cent novels. One result of their chats was that Kate became strengthened in her conviction that David had been a thief of great skill and daring. Contradiction availed him nothing. "Your last haul was a big one—you told me so yourself," she would say. "And only the top-notchers have your kind of talk and manners."
One day she returned to the matter of her former prophecy. "You've had enough of this," she said. "When you get out of bed, and get your strength back, you'll be at the old game again. You see!"
During this time Tom left for work regularly at half-past seven, and returned regularly at half-past six; and each evening he insisted on turning his dollar in to David, to be spent under David's direction. One night, as Tom was giving frightful punishment to an imaginary opponent with the boxing gloves—he had redeemed them with part of his second day's pay—several coins slipped from his pocket and went ringing upon the floor. When Tom rose from picking them up David's thin face was gazing at him in sorrowful accusation. The boy paled before the look. He was silent for a moment. Then he asked mechanically, almost without breath: "What's de matter?"
"Haven't you been stealing from your employers?" David asked, in a low voice.
The boy's colour came back. "No I ain't. Honest."
"Then where did you get that money?"