“Mr. Walton,” he faltered, “I don't like to carry tales about matters which don't concern me, and when a nasty report gets in the air I try to keep from having anything to do with it.”
“I'm talking to you about business now!” Old Simon raised his voice to a shrill cry, which, had it not stranded in his throat, would have reached the adjoining room.
“The report touches on my affairs here in this house, and if you don't tell me, if you don't aid me with whatever knowledge you may have run across, you can draw your pay and quit.”
Lassiter saw the utter futility of remaining silent longer, and with a desperate look on his face he answered: “I didn't want to make the poor boy's case any worse, Mr. Walton, and so I hoped it would turn out untrue before it got to you; but they say the girl admits the whole thing. The minister of the church where she plays the organ told me it was true.”
“Girl? What girl?” the banker gasped. “Why do you take all day to get at a thing?”
Then, as Lassiter told the story which was on every tongue, old Simon stared, his mouth falling open and his unlighted cigar seesawing between his jagged stumps of teeth.
“So you are plumb sure it wasn't the money that Thornton was talking about!” he exclaimed, with a deep breath of relief.
“Yes, I am sure of that, Mr. Walton. They have been so full of chatter about the girl that not a word has been said about money, although some think you actually furnished the ready cash for him to get away on.” The two sat silent for several minutes; then, shaking his tousled head and shrugging his gaunt shoulders in his faded black alpaca coat, the banker said, with grim finality of tone: “He's a bad egg, Toby. That fellow is rotten to the core. This last discovery really helps us hide the other matter, but the two of them put together will wipe his name off the slate of this town forever. He'll never dare to show his face here again. He might have tried to get around me and live down the shortage, but I reckon both things coming to a head at once kind o' broke his courage, and he decided to skedaddle. I have no pity for the girl neither—not a smidgin; a woman that would give in to a scamp like him don't deserve any man's pity. Say, Toby, I'm a peculiar in some ways: as long as I felt that I owed something to that boy as his father his doings kind o' lay on my mind, but he has plumb cancelled that obligation. I can get along without worry over him if he is put clean out of my calculations, so after this I don't want no human being to mention his name to me. I'll let 'em know that they can't joke with me about it on the street. I want you to go this minute to Bailey Thornton's store and ask him for my account up to date. Then I'll send him my check, and do my trading with Pete Longley. He will be trotting in to apologize, but keep him away from me. Huh! he can't sneer at me as I walk along the public highways of this town; his account with us isn't worth ten cents a month, and he's shaky, anyway. I wish I'd hit him in the mouth as he stood there gloating over his dirty joke!”