“Now that you’ve told that much about yourself, I can’t see any good reason why you should not tell it all. Seems to me it’s your duty.”
Osgood seemed to meditate again. “There are others concerned,” he said presently, “and I have a duty to them as well as to myself. What I’ve told of my own affairs doesn’t concern them, and I will claim that I’ve never yet played the squealer on any other chap.”
“But the truth will have to come out.”
“I haven’t a doubt about that. Let it come. But when it does, let it come from the right source.”
“I suspected that you must know something about it.”
“Oh, yes, you’ve suspected me all along, Nelson. In possession of the facts I’ve given you, it will be a simple matter for you to show me up in Oakdale.”
“If you imagine I’m going to run right away and tattle what you’ve practically told me in confidence, you’ve got me sized up wrong.”
“I was not aware that I told it to you in confidence. I do not remember that I exacted from you a promise of secrecy.”
“Perhaps that was because you thought I’d tell anyhow.”
“I didn’t think much about it. I didn’t stop to think. When the impulse seized me, I simply went ahead and told.”