He watched the young fellow’s face narrowly, but it was entirely reposeful, and so also was the voice that answered:
“No, he didn’t find any other fault with me. If he had had any to find, he would have begun yesterday, for he was just in the humor for it. He drove that jack-pair around town and showed them the sights, and when he came home he couldn’t find his father’s old silver watch that don’t keep time and he thinks so much of, and couldn’t remember what he did with it three or four days ago when he saw it last, and so when I arrived he was all in a sweat about it, and when I suggested that it probably wasn’t lost but stolen, it put him in a regular passion and he said I was a fool—which convinced me, without any trouble, that that was just what he was afraid had happened, himself, but did not want to believe it, because lost things stand a better chance of being found again than stolen ones.”
“Whe-ew!” whistled Wilson; “score another on the list.”
“Another what?”
“Another theft!”
“Theft?”
“Yes, theft. That watch isn’t lost, it’s stolen. There’s been another raid on the town—and just the same old mysterious sort of thing that has happened once before, as you remember.”
“You don’t mean it!”
“It’s as sure as you are born! Have you missed anything yourself?”
“No. That is, I did miss a silver pencil-case that Aunt Mary Pratt gave me last birthday—”