brilliant.A grown man that would shove that amount of money into his overcoat pocket and then go sasshayin' from Wapatomac to Orham ain't the kind I'd recommend to ship as cow steward on a cattle boat, to say nothin' of president of a bank.But confessin's good for the soul, they say, even if it does make a feller feel like a fool, so here goes.I did just that thing."He went on to tell of his trip to Wapatomac, his interview with Sage, his visit to the windmill shop, his discovery that four hundred of the fourteen hundred had disappeared.Then he told of his attempts to trace it, of Jed's anxious inquiries from day to day, and, finally, of the scene he had just passed through.
"So there you are," he concluded."I wish to mercy you'd tell me what it all means, for I can't tell myself.If it hadn't been so--so sort of pitiful, and if I hadn't been so puzzled to know what made him do it, I cal'late I'd have laughed myself sick to see poor old Jed tryin' to lie.Why, he ain't got the first notion of how to begin; I don't cal'late he ever told a real, up-and-down lie afore in his life.That was funny enough--but when he began to tell me he was a thief! Gracious king! And all he could think of in the way of an excuse was that he stole the four hundred to buy a suit of clothes with.Ho, ho, ho!"He roared again.Charlie Phillips laughed also.But his sister did not laugh.She had seated herself in the rocker by the window when the captain began his tale and now she had drawn back into the corner where the shadows were deepest.
"So there you are," said Captain Sam, again."There's the riddle.
Now what's the answer? Why did he do it? Can either of you guess?"Phillips shook his head."You have got me," he declared."And the money he gave you was not the money you lost? You're sure of that?""Course I'm sure of it.In the first place I lost a packet of clean tens and twenties; this stuff I've got in my pocket now is all sorts, ones and twos and fives and everything.And in the second place--""Pardon me, just a minute, Captain Hunniwell.Where did he get the four hundred to give you, do you think? He hasn't cashed any large checks at the bank within the last day or two, and he would scarcely have so much on hand in his shop.""Not as much as that--no.Although I've known the absent-minded, careless critter to have over two hundred knockin' around among his tools and chips and glue pots.Probably he had some to start with, and he got the rest by gettin' folks around town and over to Harniss to cash his checks.Anthony Hammond over there asked me a little while ago, when I met him down to the wharf, if I thought Shavin's Winslow was good for a hundred and twenty-five.Said Jed had sent over by the telephone man's auto and asked him to cash a check for that much.Hammond said he thought 'twas queer he hadn't cashed it at our bank; that's why he asked me about it.""Humph! But why should he give his own money away in that fashion?
