"I don't answer any questions vot reflects on my honor as a gentleman," Steel Spring replied.
"But you can tell us what occasioned you to leave the service of Lieutenant Murden, can't you?" I remarked.
"I could tell, but I don't choose to."
"Very well," was the significant remark of my friend, "I know of a few knucks who are in town, and whom you were the means of burning out a few months since. I am not in the police department at present, and can't harm you, but I will hint to a few friends that you are in town."
We turned, as though about to leave him, but Steel Spring was not desirous of having a horde of desperadoes at his heels, as he inferred that he would have, if he suffered us to leave him displeased. "O, don't quit a covey that vay," he cried, in an abject manner; "I don't vant to 'ave lots of henemies varever I goes, and you knows it."
"Well, then, tell us what made you quit Murden's service?" I asked.
He hesitated for a moment, as though almost resolved to tell a lie, but thought better of it and told the truth.
"Vell, if ye must know, I'll tell ye. There vas a trifling sum of money missed from the police office one day, and I vos suspected. That's all."
"Of course, you took the money, eh?" Mr. Brown remarked.
"I vish that you vouldn't ask me such strange questions. You is enough to confuse any one, I say."