Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/309

Rh "Oh, they that were—ah—detaining him seemed rather to fancy," the Englishman explained deprecatingly, "that he had stolen the pool."

"The pool paid to-day?" the girl asked. "You mean that it has been taken already, and they think that Mr. Preston took it?"

"Oh, but I say, if he did, he hid it so cleverly away at once," the Briton reassured, "that they could not find it upon him; and there was absolutely nothing to prove he took it."

"Then why did they detain him?"

"Oh, Close-Stuart, you know, had just had it paid to him there in bank notes, as usual, before us all in the smoking-room. And he had been drinking a bit, you know, and was just the trifle poggled. So in rather American taste—I beg pardon, really, in bad taste only, I meant—he stuffed it into his outside jacket-pocket; and a moment later, when a number of them were crowding out of the smoking-room, he was joggled a bit by Mr. 283