“Now, wait!” cried Griff, interposing, while old Chumley listened eagerly, his little eyes snapping. “Did you set your umbrella aside without opening it, Miss Morse?”
“And you had it hanging by the hooked handle on the edge of the counter right beside this lady, didn’t you?”
“I saw it. It’s just like a story book!” laughed Griff. “Get the umbrella, Miss Morse. I knew it would be all right——”
“I am not convinced that it is ‘all right,’ as you say, young man,” spoke Mrs. Prentice, eyeing Jess’s flushed face, suspiciously.
“Get it from behind the door there, Griff,” said the girl, hurriedly. She, too, had heard of such an incident as this. Perhaps the purse had been knocked from the counter into her open umbrella. But suppose it was _not_ there?
“Here it is! here’s the umbrella!” squeaked the officious Mr. Chumley, coming out from behind the entry door, where he had been listening.
All three of them—Jess, Griff, and the excited loser of the purse—reached for the umbrella; but Griff was the first.
“Hold on!” said he to the landlord. “Let me have that, sir. The purse was lost in our store. We’re just as much interested in the matter as anybody.”
“I fail to see that, young man,” said Mrs. Prentice, tartly.
She was not naturally of a mean disposition; but she was excited, and the explanation Griff had given her of the loss of the purse had seemed to her unimaginative mind “far-fetched,” to say the least.
The boy half opened the umbrella and turned it over. Crash to the floor fell the purse, and it snapped open as it landed. Out upon the linoleum rolled the glistening coins—several of them gold pieces—that Jess had noted so greedily in the egg store.
“What did I tell you?” cried Griff, looking at Mrs. Prentice.
That lady only exclaimed “Oh!” very loudly and looked aghast at the rolling coins. Jess half stooped to gather up the scattered money. Then she thought better of it and straightened up, looking straight into the face of the owner of the purse.
But old Mr. Chumley could not stand the lack of interest the others seemed to show in what—to him—was the phase of particular importance in the whole affair. There was real money rolling all over the Widow Morse’s kitchen. He went down on his rheumatic old knees and scrambled for it. Mr. Chumley worshipped money, anyway, and this was a worshipper’s rightful attitude.