“Gone!” gasped Jack.
“We think it was taken by somebody,” put in Annie, sorrowfully.
“You don’t mean that!”
A few words of explanation made him as wise on the subject as they were themselves, and the boy looked down ruefully at the carpet.
“So you think Maggie McFadden may have taken it?” he said, presently.
“There was nobody else in here to-day,” said Annie.
“As you didn’t actually see her take it, of course we can’t accuse her. She must have found out that you kept money in that drawer and made up her mind to steal it at the first chance. She must have been pretty slick to get away with it right under your nose. Well, it’s pretty tough. I never thought much of the McFaddens. Maggie isn’t my style of a girl, and Denny, her brother, hangs ’round with a crowd that I wouldn’t think of associating with. He blows in most of his wages on horse-racing. Well, mother, how are we going to pay the rent?”
“That’s what worries me. The agent was here and was much put out because I could not pay him. He has allowed me three days to get the money together again. If the rent is not paid by Friday he told me we’d have to move.”
“Gee! This is simply fierce! And to think that everything looked so bright to me a while ago!”
“If I only knew where I could borrow fifteen dollars, we could pay it back in a little while, now that you have secured a position,” said Mrs. Hazard.