“Hum, well I don’t know. What’s it about?” inquired Harding more impudently than ever.
“It’s about Roy, Fanning,” said Jimsy seriously. “I want you to tell me on your word of honor that you don’t know where he is.”
“Oh, you do, eh? Well, you have an awful nerve to come to me with such questions. How do I know where he is?”
This question was somewhat of a poser for Jimsy. That impetuous youth had approached the other more or less on an impulse, and now that the direct question was put to him he felt that he could not, for the life of him, put his suspicions into so many words.
“Well—er—you see,” he said somewhat confusedly, “I had an idea that you might have seen him.”
“Well, I haven’t, and what’s more I don’t want to,” snapped Fanning aggressively. He was quite cool now that he saw that Jimsy had nothing definite against him in his mind, but only a vague suspicion.
“You really mean that, Fanning?” rejoined Jimsy earnestly. “His sister is terribly worried. He hasn’t been seen since last night.”
“Is that so?” asked Fanning with a sudden accession of interest; “then he can’t race to-day, can he?”
“I wasn’t thinking about the race,” said Jimsy; “it was Roy himself I was worrying about.”
“Well, you may as well stop your anxiety,” chuckled Fanning; “how do you know he isn’t off on a little spree, and––”