“Well, I don’t want to let you go without anything,” he began.  “I’ll let you have twenty-five dollars—­”

John Stumpy jumped up in a passion.  “That settles it.  I’m done with you.  To-night I’ll send a letter to Chris Holtzmann, 897 Sherman Street, Chicago, and tell him a few things he wants to know, and—­”

“You dare!” almost shrieked Mr. Woodward.  “Write a single word to him and I’ll—­ I’ll—­”

“So! ho!  You’re afraid of him, are you?”

“No, I’m not, but what’s the use of letting him know anything?”

“Humph!  Do you suppose I’d tell him without pay?  Not much!  I can easily get him to fork over fifty or a hundred dollars.  And he’ll make you pay it back, ten times over.”

Mr. Aaron Woodward sank back in a chair without a word.  Evidently he was completely baffled, and knew not which way to turn.

As for myself, I was very much in the dark as to what all this was about.  I was certain the past events spoken of pertained to my father’s affairs, but failed to “make connections.”

One thing, however, I did do, and that was to make a note of Mr. Chris Holtzmann’s address.  He was the man Stumpy had written to just previous to the robbery, and he was perhaps one of the persons concerned in my father’s downfall.

“See here,” said the merchant at last.  “It’s too late for us to quarrel.  What good would an exposure to Holtzmann do?”

“Never mind.  If you won’t come to time, I shall do as I please,” growled Stumpy.

“But a thousand dollars!  I haven’t got it in cash.”

“You can easily get it.”

“Not so easily as you think.  Tell you what I will do.  I’ll give you a hundred.  But you must give up all evidence you have against me.”

Stumpy gave a short, contemptuous laugh.  “You must think me as green as grass,” he sneered.  “I’m not giving up any evidence.  I’m holding on to all I’ve got and gathering more.”

“You have Nicholas Weaver’s statement,” went on Mr. Woodward, with interest.

“So I have.  Nick told the truth in it, too.”

“I would like to see it”

“Of course you would.  So would some other people,—­ Carson Strong’s boy, for instance.”

“Sh!—­ not so loud.”

“Well, then, don’t bring the subject up.”

“Have you the statement with you?”

“Maybe I haven’t; maybe I have.”

“Perhaps it was taken from you,” went on Mr. Woodward, curiously.

“What do you know about that?” Stumpy again jumped to his feet.  “You’ve been talking to that Strong boy,” he cried.

“Supposing I have?”

“Well, it didn’t do you no good.  Say, how much does the young cub know?”

“He knows too much for the good of either of us,” responded the merchant.

“Sorry he wasn’t found in the ruins of that tool house,” growled the tramp, savagely.

This was certainly a fine assertion for me to hear.  Yet it was no more than I would expect from John Stumpy.  He was a villain through and through.