“What’s that?” he demanded.  “What money’s that?”

Jed’s fingers moved back and forth across the bills and he answered without looking up.  He seemed much embarrassed.

“Sam,” he faltered.  “Sam—­er—­you remember you told me you’d—­er—­ lost some money a spell ago?  Some—­er—­money you’d collected over to Wapatomac.  You remember that, don’t you?”

Captain Sam looked at him in puzzled surprise.  “Remember it?” he repeated.  “Course I remember it.  Gracious king, ’tain’t likely I’d forget it, is it?”

Jed nodded.  “No-o,” he drawled, solemnly.  “No, course you couldn’t.  ’Twas four hundred dollars you was short, wan’t it?”

The Captain’s puzzled look was still there.

“Yes,” he replied.  “What of it?”

“Why—­why, just this, Sam:  I—­I want it to be plain, you understand.  I want Major Grover and Phineas here to understand the—­the whole of it.  There’s a lot of talk, seems so, around town about money bein’ missin’ from the bank—­”

Captain Sam interrupted.  “The deuce there is!” he exclaimed.  “That’s the first I’ve heard of any such talk.  Who’s talkin’?”

“Oh, a—­a good many folks, I judge likely.  Gabe Bearse asked Babbie about it, and Phin here he—­”

“Eh?” The captain turned to face his old enemy.  “So you’ve been talkin’, have you?” he asked.

Mr. Babbitt leaned forward.  “I ain’t begun my talkin’ yet, Sam Hunniwell,” he snarled.  “When I do you’ll—­”

He stopped.  Grover had touched him on the shoulder.

“Sshh!” said the Major quietly.  To the absolute amazement of Captain Sam, Phineas subsided.  His face was blazing red and he seemed to be boiling inside, but he did not say another word.  Jed seized the opportunity to continue.

“I—­I just want to get this all plain, Sam,” he put in, hastily.  “I just want it so all hands’ll understand it, that’s all.  You went over to Sylvester Sage’s in Wapatomac and he paid you four hundred dollars.  When you got back home here fourteen hundred of it was missin’.  No, no, I don’t mean that.  I mean you couldn’t find fourteen hundred—­I mean—­”

The captain’s patience was, as he himself often said, moored with a short cable.  The cable parted now.

“Gracious king!” he snapped.  “Jed, if that yarn you’re tryin’ to spin was wound in a ball and a kitten was playin’ with it you couldn’t be worse snarled up.  What he’s tryin’ to tell you,” he explained, turning to Grover, “is that the other day, when I was over to Wapatomac, old Sylvester Sage over there paid me fourteen hundred dollars in cash and when I got back here all I could find was a thousand.  That’s what you’re tryin’ to say, ain’t it?” turning to Jed once more.

“Yes—­yes, that’s it, Sam.  That’s it.”

“Course it’s it.  But what do you want me to say it for?  And what are you runnin’ around with all that money in your hands for?  That’s what I want to know.”