Part 27 (2/2)
A stubborn expression settled over his face and shoulders. He made her no further reply. Rose's anger gathered in a tempest that she tried in vain to restrain.
”William,” she demanded, ”where is it? It's gone, you know what.”
”I ain't seen it,” he answered finally; ”I really ain't, Rose.”
”That's a story, only you knew. Come out here.”
”Get along,” Gordon interrupted testily. ”How can I figure in this ruction?”
”I ain't agoing a step,” William told them both; ”I'm going to stop right here with Uncle Gordon.”
”Well, then,” the latter insisted, ”get it through with--what is it?”
”I'll tell you what it is,” William Vibard stammered; ”it's a hundred and forty dollars Rose held out on you and kept in a drawer, that's what!”
Rose's emotion changed to a crimson consternation.
”Why, William Vibard! what an awful thing to say. What little money I had put by was saved from years. What a thing to say about me and Uncle Gordon.”
”'Tain't no such thing you saved it; you held it out on him, dollars at a time. You didn't have no more right to it than I did.”
Gordon's gaze centered keenly upon his niece's hot face. She endeavored to sustain, refute, the accusation successfully; but her valor wavered, broke. She disappeared abruptly. He surveyed Vibard without pleasure.
”You're a ramshackle contraption,” he observed crisply.
”I got as good a right to it as her,” the other repeated.
”A hundred and forty dollars,” Gordon said bitterly; ”that's a small business. Well, where is it? Have you got it?”
”No, I ain't,” William exploded.
”Well--?”
”You can't never tell what might happen,” the young man observed enigmatically; ”the bellowses wear out dreadful quick, the keys work loose like, and then they might stop making them. It's the best one on the market.”
”What scrabble's this? What did you do with the money?”
”They're in the stable,” William Vibard answered more obscurely than before. ”With good treatment they ought to last a life. They come cheaper too like that.”
Gordon relinquished all hope of extracting any meaning from the other's elliptical speech. He rose. ”If 'they're' in the stable,” he announced, ”I'll soon have some sense out of you.” He procured a lantern, and tramped shortly to the stable, closely followed by Rose's husband.
”Now!” he exclaimed, loosening the hasp of the door, throwing it open.
The former entered and bent over a heap in an obscure corner. When he rose the lantern shone on two orderly piles of glossy black paper boxes. Gordon strode across the contracted s.p.a.ce and wrenched off a lid.... Within reposed a brand new accordion. There were nine others.
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