“His cap! Do you suppose chaps cut strings with their caps? Why, you must be a flat.”
“His knife, was it?” exclaimed Riddell, excitedly. “Was it his knife?”
“There you go; you’re so clever. I as good as tell yer, and then you go on as if you guessed it yourself! You ain’t got as much learnin’ as you think, governor.”
“But was it his knife he left behind?” inquired Riddell, too eager to attend to the sarcasms of his companion.
“What could it ’a been, unless it might be a razor. You don’t cut ropes with your thumb-nails, do you? Of course it was his knife.”
“And have you got it still, Tom?”
Here Tom began to get shy. As long as it was only information that the captain wanted to get at he didn’t so much mind being cross-examined, but directly it looked as if his knife was in peril he bristled up.
“That’ll do,” said he gruffly; “my knife’s nothink to do with you.”
“I know it isn’t, and I don’t want to take it from you. I only want to look at it.”
“Oh, yes; all very fine. And you mean to make out as it’s yourn and you was the chap I saw hoppin’ out of the winder, do yer? I know better. He weren’t your cut, so you needn’t try to make that out.”