“Why—­why, yes, Cousin Gussie.  You have been very kind.  I appreciate it, I assure you.”

“Oh, be hanged!  I haven’t been kind.  I’ve only been trying to keep you from being too kind to people who work you for a good thing, that’s all.  Look here, Loosh:  I know what you’ve done with that thirteen thousand dollars.”

Galusha shot one more pitiful glance in the direction of the kitchen.

“Ah—­ah—­do you?” he stammered.

“Yes.  You’ve given it away, haven’t you?”

“Well—­well, you see—­”

“You have?  I knew it!  And I know whom you’ve given it to.”

There was no answer to be made to this appalling assertion.  Poor Galusha merely clung to the receiver and awaited his death sentence.

“You’ve given it to some mummy-hunter to fit out another grave-robbing expedition.  Now, haven’t you?”

“Why—­why—­”

“Be a sport now, Loosh!  Tell me the truth.  That’s what you’ve done, isn’t it?”

Galusha hesitated, closing his eyes, struggled with his better nature, conquered it, and faltered:  “Why—­why—­in a way of speaking, I suppose—­”

“I knew it!  I bet Minor a dinner on it.  Well, confound you, Loosh; don’t you realize they’re only working you for what they can get out of you?  Haven’t I told you not to be such an ass?  You soft-headed old . . .  Here!  What’s the matter with this wire?  Hello, Central!  Hello! . . .”

The Cabot oration broke off in the middle and was succeeded by a series of rattles and thumps and jingles like a barrel of kitchenware falling downstairs; this was followed by a startling stillness, which was, in turn, broken by an aggrieved voice wailing:  “Say, Central, why can’t I get that twenty-seven ring fourteen Bayport?  I bet you you’ve given me every other d——­ number on Cape Cod!”

Galusha hung up the receiver.  Then he sat down in the rocker and gazed at the opposite wall.  His secret was safe.  But that safety he had bought at the price of another falsehood—­told to Cousin Gussie this time.  He did not seem to be the same Galusha Cabot Bangs at all.  That Galusha—­the former Galusha—­had considered himself a gentleman and would no more have told a lie than he would have stolen his neighbor’s spoons.  This one—­his present self—­ lied not only once but twice and thrice.  He told one untruth to cover another.  He lived in an atmosphere of blackest falsehood and deception.  The sole ray of light in the darkness was the knowledge that Martha Phipps did not know his real character.  She considered him honest and truthful.  In order that she might continue to think him so, he would go on prevaricating forever, if necessary.

It preyed upon his conscience, nevertheless.  The thought uppermost in his mind was expressed in a reply which he made to a question asked by Mr. Bloomer on an afternoon of that week.  Zach and Primmie were, as so often happened, involved in an argument and, as also so often happened, they called on him to act as referee.