“That’s what I’d do to you in a minute, if you’d stolen them,” she said.
“I’ve rather an interest in the little boy,” I said nervously, “and I thought if you wouldn’t mind telling me what the boots came to, I’d ask you to let me pay for them. I don’t think he’ll do it again.”
“Well, it’s a very queer thing,” said the woman; “what a popular young thief your friend must be! Why, I had a young gentleman here yesterday evening asking the very same thing of me!”
“What!” I exclaimed, “was it Jack Smith?”
“I don’t know his name, but he’d a pair of black eyes that would astonish you.”
“That’s him, that’s him!” I cried. “And he wanted to pay for the boots?”
“He did pay for them. I shall make my fortune out of that pair of boots,” added she, laughing.
This, then, explained his wearing the boots that morning. How quick I had been to suspect him of far different conduct!
“You’d better keep your money for the next time he steals something,” observed Mrs Trotter, rather enjoying my astonishment; “he’s likely to be a costly young treat to you at this rate. I hope the next party he robs will be as lazy about her rights as me.”
I dropped my uncle’s half-sovereign back into my purse, with the rather sad conviction that after all I was not the only honest and righteous person in the world.