can't pull wool over my eyes. The money's gone, and the
stamps are gone, and somebody's got 'em."

"Herbert Carr!"

"No, it isn't Herbert Carr. It's somebody nearer to me, I'm ashamed to
say, than Herbert Carr."

"Do you mean to say I took them?" asked Eben.

"I won't bring a charge unless I can prove it, but I shall watch you
pretty closely after this."

"In that case, I don't wish to work for you any longer; I throw up the
situation," said Eben, loftily.

"Verv well. When are you going to leave town?"

"I ain't going to leave town at present."

"Where are you going to board, then?"

Eben regarded his father in dismay.

"You're not going to send me adrift, are you?" he asked, in
consternation.

"I'm not going to support you in idleness; if you give up your situation
in the store, you'll have to go to work for somebody else."

"I wish I could," thought Eben, thinking of the rich young man at the
hotel, from whom he had sought a position as companion.

"Then I shall have to leave Wayneboro," he said; "there's nothing to do
here."

"Yes, there is; Farmer Collins wants a hired man."

"A hired man!" repeated Eben, scornfully. "Do you think I am going--to
hire out on a farm?"

"You might do a great deal worse," answered Ebenezer, sensibly.

"After being a dry-goods salesman in Boston, I haven't got down to that,
I beg to assure you," said Eben, with an air of consequence.

"Then you will have to work in the store if you expect to stay at home,"
said his father. "And hark you, Eben Graham," he added, "don't report
any more losses of money or stamps. I make you responsible for both."

Eben went back to his work in an uneasy frame of mind. He saw that
he had not succeeded in imposing upon his father, and that the
clear-sighted old gentleman strongly suspected where the missing
articles had gone. Eben might have told, had he felt inclined, that
the five-dollar bill had been mailed to a lottery agent in New York in
payment for a ticket in a Southern lottery, and that the stamps were
even now in his possession, and would be sold at the first opportunity.
His plan to throw suspicion upon Herbert had utterly failed, and the
cold looks with which he had been greeted showed what the villagers
thought of his attempt.

"I won't stay in Wayneboro much longer," Eben inwardly resolved. "It's
the dullest hole in creation. I can get along somehow in a large place,
but here there's positively nothing. Hire out on a