Would you believe it?—he took out his handkerchief, and dusted the place I had touched. "Better not," he said. "Go on, father; let us get done with this den."
"Gentlemen," said the elder person, addressing the patients, "I called here yesterday, like a fool, to ask who had stolen from me a sum of money, which I believed I left in my room on going out in the morning. This doctor here and his spirits contrived to make me suspect my only son. Well, I charged him at once with the crime, as soon as I got back home; and what do you think he did. He said, 'Father, let us go up stairs and look for it, and—'"
Here the young man broke in with "Come, father, don't worry yourself for nothing"; and then, turning, added, "To cut the thing short, he found the notes under his candlestick, where he had left them on going to bed. This is all of it. We came here to stop this fellow" (by which he meant me) "from carrying a slander further. I advise you, good people, to profit by the matter, and to look up a more honest doctor, if doctoring be what you want."
As soon as he had ended, I remarked solemnly: "The words of the spirits are not my words. Who shall hold them accountable?"
"Nonsense," said the young man. "Come, father," and they left the room.
Now was the time to retrieve my character. "Gentlemen," said I, "you have heard this very singular account. Trusting the spirits utterly and entirely as I do, it occurs to me that there is no reason why they may not after all have been right in their suspicions of this young person. Who can say that, overcome by remorse, he may not have seized the time of his father's absence to replace the money?"
To my amazement up gets a little old man from the corner. "Well, you are a low cuss," said he; and, taking up a basket beside him, hobbled out of the room. You maybe sure I said some pretty sharp things to him, for I was out of humor to begin with, and it is one thing to be insulted by a stout young man, and quite another to be abused by a wretched old cripple. However, he went away, and I supposed, for my part, that I was done with the whole business.
An hour later, however, I heard a rough knock at my door, and, opening it hastily, saw my red-headed young man with the cripple.
"Now," said the former, catching me by the collar, and pulling me into the room among my patients, "I want to know, my man, if this doctor said that it was likely I was the thief, after all?"
"That's what he said," replied the cripple; "just about that, sir."