ted he, instantly on the
defensive. "Straight goods, I did."

The man shrugged his shoulders.

"It was only that it didn't seem to come right. You know how things go
sometimes."

He saw the workman's lip curl.

"You think I ought to have told."

"Have I said so?"

"No, but I know you do think so."

"I wasn't aware I'd expressed any opinion."

"No--but--well--hang it all--you think I am a coward for not making a
clean breast of the whole thing!" cried Stephen, now thoroughly enraged.

"What do you think yourself?" O'Malley suddenly inquired with
disconcerting directness.

"Oh, I know I've been rotten," admitted the boy. "Still, even now--" He
paused.

"You mean that even now it isn't too late?" put in the truckman, his
face lighting to a smile.

"N--o; that wasn't exactly what I was going to say," began the lad,
resuming his argumentative tone. "What I mean is that--"

A swift frown replaced the elder man's smile.

"Here we are at the garage," he broke in. "They will do whatever you
want them to."

He seemed in a hurry and as Stephen could find no excuse for lingering
he climbed reluctantly out of the truck and stood balancing himself on
the curb that edged the sidewalk.

"I'm much obliged to you for bringing me over," he observed awkwardly.

"That's all right."

The man in the brown jeans started his engine.

"Say, Mr. O'Malley!" called Stephen desperately.

"Well?"

"You--you--won't tell my father about my taking the car, will you?" he
pleaded wretchedly.

"_I_ tell him?"

Never had he heard so much scorn compressed into three words.

"You need have no worries," declared the man over his shoulder, a
contemptuous sneer curling his lips. "I confess my own wrong-doing but I
do not tattle the sins of other people. Your father will never be the
wiser about you so far as I am concerned. Whatever you want him to know
you will have to tell him yourself."

Baffled, mortified, and stinging with humiliation as if he had been
whipped, Stephen watched him disappear round the bend of the road.

O'Malley despised him, that he knew; and he did not at all relish being
despised.

CHAPTER III

A SECOND CALAMITY

While hunting up the garage and negotiating for gasoline Steve thrust
resolutely from his mind his encounter with O'Malley and the galling
sense of inferiority it carried with it; but once on the highroad again
the smart returned and the sting lingering behind the man's scorn was