Jim shook his head.
“Well,” exclaimed Clem in outraged tones, “then all I can say is that you’re the doggonedest, meanest, false-pridest—”
“You’re another!” Jim was grinning now, suddenly feeling very warm and happy, and somewhat foolish. Clem grinned back. Then he laughed uncertainly.
“You blamed old idiot!” he said affectionately.
Jim blinked. “Guess I was to blame, Clem,” he said reflectively. “Maybe I’d ought to have made you believe me; licked you until you did or—or something. But it didn’t seem right you should think I was a thief, even if it did look like I was, and so I—I got sort of uppity and—and—”
“Don’t blame you,” growled Clem. “Ought to have punched my head. Wish you had. I don’t know what made me so rotten mean. Anyhow, I’m mighty sorry and—and I beg your pardon, old son.”
“Aw, shut up,” said Jim. “Guess we both acted loony. Let’s forget it.”
Clem nodded. “Hope you will. I wouldn’t care to think that you were holding it in for me, Jim. Funny thing is,” he went on in tones that held embarrassment, “I don’t know whether I got to thinking you didn’t—didn’t do it or whether I got to not caring whether you did or didn’t, but I’d have called quits long ago, two or three days after, I guess, if you’d given me a chance.”
“Well, as long as you were thinking me a thief—”
“But I could see how most any fellow might make a foozle like that,” interrupted Clem eagerly. “I said that here was that fellow you’d known and been fond of nagging you for money, and you not having any, and there was that money in the suit-case which you knew mighty well I’d give you if you asked for it—”