Even if I had failed to recognise
it, as perhaps I might have done, I should have identified it directly
it reached my hands, inasmuch as it had 'E.P., a present from A.P.'
engraved upon the inside. I need say no more to show that this was the
very watch which you told your mother and me that you had dropped
out of your pocket."
Up to this time Theobald's manner had been studiously calm, and
his words had been uttered slowly, but here he suddenly quickened
and flung off the mask as he added the words, "or some such cock and
bull story, which your mother and I were too truthful to disbelieve.
You can guess what must be our feelings now."
Ernest felt that this last home-thrust was just. In his less anxious
moments he had thought his papa and mamma "green" for the readiness
with which they believed him, but he could not deny that their
credulity was a proof of their habitual truthfulness of mind. In
common justice he must own that it was very dreadful for two such
truthful people to have a son as untruthful as he knew himself to be.
"Believing that a son of your mother and myself would be incapable
of falsehood I at once assumed that some tramp had picked the watch up
and was now trying to dispose of it.
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