faintly.

"I never even hardly noticed your brother was still working for me," he
explained, earnestly. "I never thought anything about it. My sons sort
of tried to tease me about the way your father--about his taking up this
glue business, so to speak--and one day Albert, Junior, asked me if I
felt all right about your brother's staying there after that, and I told
him--well, I just asked him to shut up. If the boy wanted to stay there,
I didn't consider it my business to send him away on account of
any feeling I had toward his father; not as long as he did his work
right--and the report showed he did. Well, as it happens, it looks now
as if he stayed because he HAD to; he couldn't quit because he'd 'a'
been found out if he did. Well, he'd been covering up his shortage for a
considerable time--and do you know what your father practically charged
me with about that?"

"No, Mr. Lamb."

In his resentment, the old gentleman's ruddy face became ruddier and his
husky voice huskier. "Thinks I kept the boy there because I suspected
him! Thinks I did it to get even with HIM! Do I look to YOU like a man
that'd do such a thing?"

"No," she said, gently. "I don't think you would."

"No!" he exclaimed. "Nor HE wouldn't think so if he was himself; he's
known me too long. But he must been sort of brooding over this whole
business--I mean before Walter's trouble he must been taking it to heart
pretty hard for some time back. He thought I didn't think much of
him any more--and I expect he maybe wondered some what I was going
to DO--and there's nothing worse'n that state of mind to make a man
suspicious of all kinds of meanness. Well, he practically stood up there
and accused me to my face of fixing things so't he couldn't ever raise
the money to settle for Walter and ask us not to prosecute. That's the
state of mind your father's brooding got him into, young lady--charging
me with a trick like that!"

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know you'd never----"

The old man slapped his sturdy knee, angrily. "Why, that dang fool of a
Virgil Adams!" he exclaimed. "He wouldn't even give me a chance to talk;
and he got me so mad I couldn't hardly talk, anyway! He might 'a' known
from the first I wasn't going to let him walk in and beat me out of my
own--that is, he might 'a' known I wouldn't let him get ahead of me in
a business matter--not with my boys twitting me about it every few
minutes! But to talk to me the way he did this morning--well