“Where have you been, Philip?” asked Mr. Carter, breaking the silence. “We were getting anxious about you.” “I have bad news for you, sir,” returned Phil, saying what stood first in his mind. “I have lost the two hundred dollars Mr. Pitkin paid me this morning.”
“So you lost it?” observed Mr. Pitkin with a sneer, emphasizing the word “lost” to show his incredulity.
“Yes, sir, I lost it,” answered Phil, looking him fearlessly in the eye; “or, rather, it was stolen from me.”
“Oh! now it is stolen, is it?” repeated Pitkin.
“Really, Uncle Oliver, this is getting interesting.”
“I believe I am the proper person to question Philip,” said Mr. Carter coldly. “It was my money, I take it.”
“Yes, it was yours. As I made the payment, I cannot, of course, be responsible for its not reaching you. You will pardon my saying that it would have been wiser to employ a different messenger.”
“Why?” demanded Uncle Oliver, looking displeased.
“Why, really, Uncle Oliver,” said Mr. Pitkin, “I should think the result might convince you of that.”
“We had better let Philip tell his story,” said Mr. Carter quietly. “How did it happen, Philip?”
Thereupon Philip told the story already familiar to the reader.
“Upon my word, quite a romantic story!” commented Mr. Pitkin, unable to repress a sneer. “So you were tracked by a rascal, lured into a den of thieves, robbed of your money, or, rather, Mr. Carter's, and only released by the house catching fire?”
“That is exactly what happened to me, sir,” said Philip, coloring with indignation, for he saw that Mr. Pitkin was doing his best to discredit him.
“It quite does credit to your imagination. By the way, boy, have you been in the habit of reading dime novels?”
“I never read one in my life, sir.”
“Then I think you would succeed in writing them. For a boy of sixteen, you certainly have a vivid imagination.”
“I quite agree with my husband,” said Mrs. Pitkin. “The boy's story is ridiculously improbable. I can't understand how he has the face to stand there and expect Uncle Oliver to swallow such rubbish.”
“I don't expect you to believe it, either of you,” said Philip manfully, “for you have never treated me fairly.”
“I think you will find, also, that my uncle is too sensible a man to credit it, also,” retorted Mrs Pitkin.
“Speak for yourself, Lavinia,” said Mr. Carter, who had waited intentionally to let his relatives express themselves. “I believe every word of Philip's story.”
“You do?” ejaculated Mrs. Pitkin, rolling her eyes and nodding her head, in the vain endeavor to express her feelings. “Really, Uncle Oliver, for a man of your age and good sense——”
“Thank you for that admission, Lavinia,” said Mr. Carter mockingly. “Go on.”
“I was about to say that you seem infatuated with this boy, of whom we know nothing, except from his own account. To my mind his story is a most ridiculous invention.”
“Mr. Pitkin, did any one enter your store just after Philip left it to inquire after him?”
“No, sir,” answered Pitkin triumphantly. “That's a lie, at any rate.”
“You will remember that Philip did not make the assertion himself. This was the statement of the thief who robbed him.”
“Yes, of course,” sneered Pitkin. “He told his story very shrewdly.”
“Mr. Carter,” said Philip, “I can show you or any one else the house in which I was confined in Bleecker Street, and there will be no trouble in obtaining proof of the fire.”
“I dare say there may have been such a fire,” said Mr. Pitkin, “and you may have happened to see it, and decided to weave it into your story.”
“Do you think I stole the money or used it for my own purpose?” asked Philip pointedly.
Mr. Pitki............