I just listened to him and I felt pretty bad, because now I saw that was what he meant.
Then he gave me another shove and he said all happy like, “But I’m the champion boy sleuth all right. Look at this—here’s your two bucks and Skinny never took it at all.”
“I—I know he didn’t,” I said.
“How did you know,” he shot right at me.
“Because,” I started to say and then he rumpled my hair up some more and began talking and never gave me a chance.
“Because it was right in that copy of Treasure Island that’s laying there,” he shouted, “and I’m one big gump, that’s what I am! I got that copy of Treasure Island out of the library this morning, because you were telling me about it, and right there in the middle of it was your plaguy old two buckarinos!”
Just for a minute I looked at him and I knew it was just like he said, because he was laughing—he was so blamed happy about it.
Oh, boy, didn’t I feel good!
“How in the dickens did it get there?” he said.
“That’s one puzzle,” I answered him.