"Look at me as if you expected me to explode at any minute. I sha'n't.
I'm not loaded."

Seth colored, under his coat of sunburn, and seemed embarrassed.

"I don't know what you're talkin' about," he stammered. "Have the
moskeeters affected YOUR brains?"

"No. My brains, such as they are, are all right, and I want to keep them
so. That's why I request you not to look at me in that way."

"How was I lookin' at you? I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do. You are wondering how much I know. I don't know anything
and I'm not curious. That's the truth. Now why not let it go at that?"

"See here, young feller, I--"

"No; you see here. I'm not an Old Sleuth; I haven't any ambitions that
way. I don't know anything about you--what you've been, what you've
done--"

"Done!" Seth leaned across the table so suddenly that he upset his
chair. "Done?" he cried; "what do you mean by that? Who said I'd done
anything? It's a lie."

"What is a lie?"

"Why--why--er--whatever they said!"