Bill was not a fellow to make much row over anything; but Tod—and I, too—wondered at his having taken it so easily. Tod asked him why he had not spoken.
“Because Lacketer—who was with me when I discovered the loss—asked me to be silent for a short time,” said Whitney. “He has a suspicion; and is looking out for himself.”
“Lacketer has?”
“He says so. I am sure he has. He thinks he could put his finger any minute on the fellow; but it would not do to accuse him without proof; and he is waiting for it.”
Tod glanced at me, and I at him, both of us thinking of Vale.
“Yesterday Lacketer lost something himself,” continued Whitney. “A shilling, I think it was. He went into a fine way over it, and said now he’d watch in earnest.”
“Who is it he suspects?” asked Tod.
“He won’t tell me; says it would not be fair.”
“Well, I shall talk about my half-crown, if you and Lacketer choose to be silent over your losses,” said Tod, decisively. “And I’ll be as good as my word, and give the reptile a ducking if I can track him.”
He went straight to the playground. It was a fine October evening, the daylight nearly gone, and the hunter’s moon rising in the sky. Tod told about his half-crown, and the boys ceased their noise to listen to him. He talked himself into a passion, and said some stinging things. “He suspected who it was, and he heard that Lacketer suspected, and he fancied that another or two suspected, and one knew; and he thought, now that affairs had come to this pitch, when nothing, put for a minute out of hand, was safe, it might be better for them all to declare their suspicions, and hunt the animal as they’d hunt a hare.”