"We don't want to take you up. We only want to know who stole that letter. Your bringing that boat here, and no one claiming her, look a little suspicious—that's all," added Squire Gilfilian.
"But I never was in Bar Harbor, where the boat was bought, in my life," pleaded Bobtail.
"You might have got some man to buy her for you."
"I might, but I didn't."
"You seem to be using the boat just as if she were your own."
"I told Captain Chinks I was ready to give her up whenever the owner came for her; and she is advertised in the Camden Herald and the Rockland Gazette."
"That's a blind," said Captain Chinks. "But I'm going to look the thing up. I was in the squire's office when that letter came, and by and by somebody will say I took it."
"Well, I don't know but you did," added Bobtail, though the suspicion had never before entered his mind.
"What!" exclaimed the man with a doubtful reputation, his face flushing.
"I don't say you did; and I don't know anything at all about it."