st ate it all before I remembered. I'm awfully sorry."

"That's all right. Striped candy don't agree with me very well,
anyway; I'm liable to swallow the stripes crossways, I guess
likely. But tell me, did Gabe look wild or out of his head when he
gave it to you?"

"Why, no. He just looked--oh--oh, you know, Uncle Jed--MYSter'ous--
that's how he looked, MYSter'ous."

"Hum! Well, I'm glad to know he wan't crazy. I've known him a
good many years and this is the first time I ever knew him to GIVE
anybody anything worth while. When I went to school with him he
gave me the measles, I remember, but even then they was only
imitation--the German kind. And now he's givin' away candy: Tut,
tut! No wonder he looked--what was it?--mysterious. . . . Hum. . . .
Well, he wanted somethin' for it, didn't he? What was it?"

"Why, he just wanted to know if I'd heard Uncle Charlie say
anything about a lot of money being gone up to the bank. He said
he had heard it was ever and ever so much--a hundred hundred
dollars--or a thousand dollars, or something--I don't precactly
remember, but it was a great, big lot. And he wanted to know if
Uncle Charlie had said how much it was and what had become of it
and--and everything. When I said Uncle Charlie hadn't said a word
he looked so sort of disappointed and funny that it made me laugh."

It did not make Jed laugh. The thought that the knowledge of the
missing money had leaked out and was being industriously spread
abroad by Bearse and his like was very disquieting. He watched
Phillips more closely than before. He watched Ruth, and, before
another day had passed, he had devised a wonderful plan, a plan to
be carried out in case of alarming eventualities.

On the afternoon of the third day he sat before his workbench, his
knee clasped between his hands, his foot swinging, and his thoughts
busy with the situation in all its alarming phases. It had been
bad enough before this new development, bad enough when the always
present danger of Phillips' secret being discovered had become
complicated by his falling in love with his employer's daughter.
But now-- Suppose the boy had stolen the money? Suppose he was
being blackmailed by some one whom he must pay or face exposure?
Jed had read of such things; they happened often enough in novels.

He did not hear the door of the outer shop open. A month or more
ago he had removed the bell from the door. His excuse for so doing
had