ton; which sort of talk seemed to tickle Mr.
Dugdale a heap.

"Then, Hugh, I got my shock, all right. It seemed to grip my heart
just as if an ice-cold hand had been laid on it. You see, in nosing
around I chanced to set eyes on something that lay half hidden among
some papers on a side table. Hugh, you could have knocked me down with
a feather when I saw that it was a souvenir tea spoon, an ornate one at
that, representing some foreign city, I don't know which, for I was too
flustered by my terrible discovery to look close. Now, what do you
think of that?"

CHAPTER IX

JUST BETWEEN CHUMS

"Oh! I'm sorry to hear that, Thad!" exclaimed Hugh. "Are you dead
certain it was a souvenir spoon you glimpsed? Couldn't you have been
mistaken?"

The other boy shook his head in the negative.

"I sure wish I could say so, Hugh, and that's a fact," he replied; "but
I've got pretty good eyes, and I ought to know what such things look
like, for hasn't my mother been collecting the same for ten years now.
Of course, ours are all of this country, representative of cities and
places she and dad have visited. But this one was different. I'm as
certain as anything that it must have come from some foreign place,
because the style and marking stamped is of no American workmanship."

Evidently, what he had just heard caused Hugh considerable anxiety. It
seemed as though things were getting darker for Owen Dugdale with every
passing day. Even stout-hearted Hugh felt his doubts rising. He
wondered if, after all, he had made a mistake in his judgment of Owen,
and his belief in the boy's honesty. Hugh remembered some of the
things that were being said around town concerning the old man of the
dismal place called the "Rookery." His aversion to meeting people, as
well as other odd traits about him, had caused no end of talk. Some
even said they were not Americans, but foreigners, English possibly.

Altogether Hugh felt considerably exercised. He shut his teeth hard
together, however, and told himself that no matter how many suspicious
circumstances seemed to surround Owen, he would still continue to have
faith in the boy.

"Whenever I think of Owen's clear eyes," he told Thad, "and the way
they look you fair and square in the face, I feel positive that boy
can't be a sneak and a thief. No one with such honest eyes could do
mean things. Such fellows are patterned on a different model nearly
always."

"Well, I've b