Part 31 (1/2)

”Pst! pst!” ca the bushes, and the boy turned sharply, to see David working his arraph

”Can't stop What is it?” said To to stop you, Master Too and tell the truth”

”Bah!” cried Tom

”The truth ardener oracularly

”Get out, you topsy-turvy old hu,” cried Tom wrathfully ”Think I don't know you?” and he ran on, and caught up to his uncle as he was passing through the yard gate

He did not speak, but went on toward the observatory door

”Shall I open it, uncle?” said Toerly

”No,” was the abrupt reply; and Tom shrank within hi-stick on a daht Then the key was rattled into the lock, the door was thrown open, and Uncle Richard, looking very grave and stern, stalked into the workshop straight to the table, glanced at the speculurily

”I'd sooner have given a hundred pounds than that should have happened,”

he said

”Yes, uncle; it's horrid,” said To sharply, and fixing him with his keen eyes, as he had often fixed so coolie, who had looked up to hie in one

”I didn't do it,” cried Toes me, and thinks it was I”

”Then how did it happen?”

Toht?”

”I don't think so, uncle; I'm almost sure I fastened it”

”Almost!” said Uncle Richard, in the same cold, hard way in which he had spoken before ”Then, sir, you accuse David of having meddled and broken it?”

”No, I don't, uncle,” said To”

”Fetch David”

Toardener, who had hardly stirred from where he had left him

”I knowed the master'd want me Did you own up, sir, like a rily ”Come to uncle directly”

”Then--”