“What is the meaning of this, Joe? A practical joke? Did you do the thing, or didn’t you? Speak out seriously. Don’t sit there, grinning like a Chinese image.”
“Why of course I did not do it, father. How should Preen’s bank-note get into my hands? Perhaps Johnny there got it and did it. He is sometimes honoured by being put down as your son, you know.”
He was jesting still. The Squire was not in a mood for jesting; Tom Chandler either. A thought struck me.
“Did you say the note was changed on Thursday, the seventeenth of June?” I asked him.
“They say so,” answered Tom Chandler.
“Then that was the day of the picnic at Mrs. Cramp’s. Neither I nor Tod left the house at all until we went there.”
“Why bless me, so it was! the seventeenth,” cried the Squire. “I can prove that they were at home till four o’clock: the Beeles were spending the day here from Pigeon Green. Now, Chandler, how has this false report arisen?”
“I am as much at sea as you can be, sir,” said Tom Chandler. “Neither I nor Paul can, or do, believe it—or understand why the other people stick to it so positively. You are going into Worcester, Squire; make your own inquiries.”
“That I will,” said the Squire. “You had better drive in with us, Chandler, if you can. Giles can stay at home.”
It was thus decided, and we started for Worcester, Chandler sitting beside the Squire. And the way the Squire touched up Bob and Blister, and the pace we flew along at, was a sight for the road to see.