Part 19 (1/2)
”It is not my fault. He--”
”He always got along well enough before you came, Dunbar. I won't have this continual quarreling around the show. It sets a bad example for the others.” The manager pulled at his mustache for a few seconds. ”Can you prove you are innocent of the theft of the tickets?”
”Perhaps I can.”
”Aren't you sure you can?”
”No, sir. I hope to be able to do so later on, though.”
”Well, then, until that time arrives you can consider yourself suspended from duty. I am going to get to the bottom of this affair.”
”I am discharged!” gasped Leo.
”Mr. Lambert, aren't you a bit hard on the lad?” put in Barton Reeve.
”I don't think so. Most men would have him arrested. But I'll let him go, and that will give him a chance to clear himself-if he can.”
There was a sneer in the last words which cut Leo to the quick. He drew a long breath.
”Very well, sir, I'll go,” he said in a strained voice. ”But, sir, let me tell you that you are doing me a great injustice.”
Unable to control his feelings any longer, Leo, left the ticket wagon and hurried to the dressing tent.
Here his friends surrounded him and tried to pour words of sympathy into his ears. But he would not listen. Sick at heart, yet burning with indignation, he packed his trunk and prepared to leave.
”Where are you going?” asked Natalie Sparks, with something like a tear in her eye.
”I don't know, Natalie-I'm too upset to think,” responded Leo, and that was all he could say.
Just before he left Barton Reeve brought him the wages due him, which Leo thrust into his pocket without counting.
”Lambert has got 'em on to-day,” he said. ”In a day or two, when he cools down, he'll be sorry he let you go.”
”It was a mean way to act,” answered the boy bitterly; and then he walked away from the circus grounds. A few blocks off he met a man with an empty wagon and hired him to go and fetch his trunk. When the man came back he asked if there was any hotel or boarding-house on the other side of town, conscious, in a way, that he must put up somewhere.
”Yes, there's the Eagle Hotel,” said the man. ”A good place and very reasonable.”
”All right; take me there.”
This was done, and then Leo sent the man to the other hotel, at which the higher cla.s.s of circus performers were stopping, for the valise which contained his ordinary clothing.
He was still so upset in mind that he knew not what to do. Having engaged his room, he entered it and locked the door, and gave himself up to his reflections.
What should he do? Ah, that was the question. He had said that perhaps he could clear himself. How should he go to work to do it?
For fully an hour Leo pondered over the situation. Then he walked downstairs, left the hotel, and sauntered back to the circus grounds.
He kept his eyes and ears open in a vain endeavor to learn something to his advantage. The ticket thieves had taken warning, and not the slightest clew to them could be unearthed.