Then Connie said, "Why in the dickens don't you speak up, Skinny? If you know anything about it, why don't you say so? Do you want to get us all in Dutch?"
I could see that Skinny was just trying as hard as he could to speak, but couldn't on account of that lump in his throat. I know it was none of my business, but I just couldn't keep still any longer, so I said right out:
"The reason he doesn't speak is because he can't. Haven't you got sense enough to see that? He thought Mr. Ellsworth was going to hand him the medal and you were crazy enough to let him think so. That's one reason he's all rattled. So I'll answer for him and I hope that'll satisfy you. He hasn't got the money and he never saw it and he never heard of it. It's down at the bottom of Black Lake, that's where it is. Don't you suppose he had something better to do with himself when he was saving that gold dust twin, than to be going through his pockets?"
"I'm sure I would," Vic Norris said.
"You!" I said, "you couldn't even have held him up in the water and you know plaguy well you couldn't—there's not one of you that could. If you thought more about what he was doing out there in all that storm with his teeth in that fellow's sweater and his hand being blamed near bitten off, it would be better for you. All you're thinking about is getting the gold cross into your patrol. What do you suppose he cares about money—a fellow that can do things like that? It's these jelly-fish that go camping with a whole savings bank in their pockets and no shovel to dig a drain ditch with—that's the kind that think about money! You make me sick. Turn your pockets inside out, Alf, and let them see what you've got—go ahead!"
All the while Mr. Ellsworth kept saying, "Shh, shh, Roy," but what did
I care? Even he couldn't stop me.
"What's he got to do with it, anyway?" Connie said to Mr. Ellsworth,
"I don't see as it's any of his business."
"Well," I said, "I'll make it my business. You've got the kid so nervous and scared, that he can't even find his pockets, he—"
"Just a moment, Roy," Mr. Ellsworth said. "You mustn't forget yourself.
You have done our friends across the lake an injustice."
"When I get through doing Skinny justice, it will be time enough to think of them," I said. Oh, boy, I was mad.