"But why do you trouble yourself to say this?" asked Mr. Bede Greatorex, speaking seriously when he noticed the anxious tone, the emotion accompanying the denial. "No one thought of supposing you had taken it."
"Hurst did, sir. He accused me."
Hurst, in his vexation, pushed his work from him in a heap. Of all living mortals, surely Roland was the simplest! he had no more tact than a child. Mr. Bede Greatorex looked from one to the other.
"I did nothing of the kind," said Hurst, speaking quietly. "The fact is, Roland Yorke can't take a joke. When he made that remark about his uncle, Sir Richard, I said to him, 'Did you take the cheque?' speaking in jest of course; and he caught up the question as serious."
"There, go to your place, Mr. Yorke," said Bede.
"I'd not do such a thing as touch a cheque for the world; or any other money that was not mine: no, not though it did belong to old Dick Yorke," earnestly reiterated Roland, keeping his ground.
"Of course you would not. Don't be foolish, Mr. Yorke."
"You believe me, I hope, sir."
"Certainly. Do go to your desk. I am busy."
Roland went back to it now, his face brighter. And Bede Greatorex thought with a smile how like a boy he was, in spite of his eight-and-twenty years, and his travels in Port Natal. These single-minded natures never grow old, or wise in the world's ways.