"Sit down, then," said the Squire, "and make it as brief as you can. Johnny, lad, tell Giles to drive the horses slowly about."
When I got back, after telling Giles, Tom Chandler had two letters in his hand; and was apologising to the Squire and to Tod for what he was obliged to enter upon. Then he added, in a few words, that the lost bank-note had come to light; it had been changed at Worcester, at the silversmith's in High Street, by, it was asserted, young Mr. Todhetley.
"Why, what d'ye mean?" cried the Squire sharply.
To explain what he meant, Tom Chandler read aloud the two letters he held; the short one, which had been first addressed to Mr. Preen by the Old Bank, and then the longer one written by Mr. Corles.
"Edward Corles must be a fool to write that!" exclaimed the Squire in his hot fashion.
"Well, he is not that, you know," said Tom Chandler. "The question is, Squire, what the grounds can be upon which they so positively state it. According to their assertion, young Mr. Todhetley changed the note at the silversmith's on the morning of Thursday, the seventeenth of June."
"Young Mr. Todhetley" in a general way was just as hot as his father, apt to fly out for nothing. I expected to see him do so now. Instead of which, he had a broad smile on his face, evidently regarding the accusation as a jest. He had perched himself on the arm of the sofa, and sat there grinning.
This struck Tom Chandler. "Did you do it for a joke?" he asked promptly.
"The only conclusion Mr. Paul and I could come to was, that--if you had done it--you did it to play a practical joke upon Preen, and were keeping it up still."
The Squire struck his hand in anger upon the table by which he sat.
"What is the meaning of this, Joe? A practical joke? Did you do the thing, or didn't you? Speak out seriously. Don't sit there, grinning like a Chinese image."
"Why of course I did not do it, father. How should Preen's bank-note get into my hands? Perhaps Johnny there got it and did it. He is sometimes honoured by being put down as your son, you know."
He was jesting still. The Squire was not in a mood for jesting; Tom Chandler either. A thought struck me.
"Did you say the note was changed on Thursday, the seventeenth of June?" I asked him.