"Me?" cried Alek. "Me?"
"Yes—you!" said Si, with icy ferocity. "Yes—you!" He had become convinced that Alek was not in any way guilty, but he was certain that the old man knew the owner of the knife, and so he pressed him at first on criminal lines. "Alek, you might as well own up now. You've been meddlin' with my watermelons!"
"Me?" cried Alek again. "Yah's ma knife. I done cah'e it foh yeahs."
Bryant changed his ways. "Look here, Alek," he said, confidentially: "I know you and you know me, and there ain't no use in any more skirmishin'. I know that you know whose knife that is. Now whose is it?"
This challenge was so formidable in character that Alek temporarily quailed and began to stammer. "Er—now—Mist' Bryant—you—you—frien' er mine—"
"I know I'm a friend of yours, but," said Bryant, inexorably, "who owns this knife?"
Alek gathered unto himself some remnants of dignity and spoke with reproach: "Mist' Bryant, dish yer knife ain' mine."
"No," said Bryant, "it ain't. But you know who it belongs to, an' I want you to tell me—quick."
"Well, Mist' Bryant," answered Alek, scratching his wool, "I won't say 's I do know who b'longs ter dish yer knife, an' I won't say 's I don't."
Bryant again laughed his Yankee laugh, but this time there was little humor in it. It was dangerous.