to
mention it.

"Sixteen pounds, all told. Oily Dave seemed uncommonly pleased
with it; though, of course, he wanted to beat me down two cents a
pound, and when he found I would not put up with that, he tried to
palm some bad money off on to me. I'm not so sure that he would
not have had me there, for I'm not half so sharp about money as I
ought to be, but Stee Jenkin called out to me to keep my eyes open,
and then I soon found out there was something on hand, so I made
the old rascal pay up in honest coin."

There was an air of modest swagger about Miles as he spoke, for he
rather prided himself on his business acumen and general smartness,
so Katherine's next words were a terrible blow to his pride.

"My dear boy, you had better have let him have his two cents twice
over, and then winked at the money, than have given him such a
chance as he must have made for himself last night," she said
bitterly.

"What do you mean?" he demanded, with the offended air he always
displayed when his pride was wounded.

"I mean that Oily Dave or some of his precious companions walked
off with two whole buckets of that lard from under your nose last
night, unless indeed you took the trouble to carry it into the
cellar again."

"It would not have been possible for anyone to do that, for I was
here all the time," he answered stiffly.

"Quite all the time, or did you have to leave for anything; some
silly little thing, perhaps?" she said in a coaxing tone, anxious
to win him from his show of bad temper, and at the same time get
some clue to the disappearance of the stuff.

"I don't think I went away at all," Miles began, then caught
himself up in a sudden recollection. "Oh yes, I did! I remember I
took a ten-dollar bill, that Jean Doulais brought, indoors for
Father to give me change."

"Then while you were indoors the thief stepped into the store and
walked off with our two pails of lard. Well, I hope the stuff will
make him very sick indeed!" exclaimed Katherine, in a tone of
disgust.

"I wonder who it was? It couldn't possibly have been Jean," said
Miles, "for he was sitting on the counter and banging his heels.
When I went into the kitchen I heard him thumping away all the time
I was there, and he was sitting and banging when I came back."

"Was it Jean Doulais who made all that noise?" said Katherine. "I
was demonstrating on the blackboard, and had to write my
explanations, because I could not make myself heard.