The Boys of Bellwood School | Page 5

had an impulse to invite his new acquaintance up to the house, but suddenly thought of his aunt and changed his mind. Nothing would have delighted him more than to have Ned Foreman tell him about his travels and adventures, for they must have been many.
Frank strolled homeward, trying his knife on a piece of willow and shaping out a whistle. As he came up the walk to the house he heard voices inside. His aunt was speaking in her sharp, strident tones, a little more excitedly than usual.
A gruff, masculine voice responded, and Frank, wondering who the owner might be, stepped into the hall and peered into the reception-room.
"Aha!" instantly greeted him, as a man there sprang to his feet. "Here is that precious nephew of yours, Miss Brown. I say, Frank Jordan, what have you done with my diamond bracelet?"
CHAPTER III
THE DIAMOND BRACELET
Frank looked at the speaker in wonder. He knew Samuel Mace, the jeweler, perfectly well. The village tradesman was greatly excited, and he glided toward Frank in a threatening way, as if he would walk straight over him.
What made the occasion doubly puzzling to Frank was the fact that his aunt looked more severe, shocked and alarming than ever before. He did not move, drawing upright with boyish manliness, and the jeweler halted and then retreated a step or two.
"Your diamond bracelet, Mr. Mace?" repeated Frank in a perplexed tone; and then, with a faint smile, glancing at the wrist of the angry visitor: "I did not know you wore one."
"Don't you try to be funny!" stormed the jeweler, and he seized Frank by the arm. "You young rascal, where is that bracelet you took from my store?"
Frank got a glimmering of the facts now. He was dumfounded, and listened like one in a dream, while Mr. Mace continued his furious tirade:
"He took it. Can't you see from his actions that he took it, Miss Brown? Nobody else could have done it--nobody else was in the store when he bought that stickpin he wears. After he left the shop the bracelet was missing."
"Frank, if you have the bracelet give it up," said his aunt coldly.
"See here, aunt," cried Frank, firing up instantly at this, "you don't mean to say that you imagine for one instant that I am a thief?"
"We are all sinful and tempted," returned Miss Brown in a tearful, whispering tone.
"Not me," dissented Frank--"not in that mean way, anyhow. Why, you wretched old man!" he fairly shouted at Samuel Mace, "how dare you even so much as insinuate that I know anything about your missing bracelet--if there is any missing bracelet."
"You was in my store--it was gone after you left. You took it," stubbornly insisted the jeweler.
"I tell you I didn't take it!" cried Frank.
"You give it up, or I'll have you arrested," declared the jeweler.
"If you do, my folks will make it hot for you," declared Frank. "I am no thief."
He drew himself up proudly in his conscious innocence, and marched from the room all on fire with resentment and just indignation.
"Why, the old curmudgeon!" exclaimed the boy as he passed out into the open air again. "How dare he make such a charge. I won't even argue it with him; it's too ridiculous."
He had cooled down somewhat after walking aimlessly and excitedly about the garden a round or two. When he came again to the front of the house, Samuel Mace was departing from the scene. As he caught sight of Frank he waved his cane angrily at him with the words:
"I'll see about this, young man!"
Frank went into the house to find his aunt locking up the secretary in the library, just as she did when there was a burglar scare in town. Her very glance and manner accused Frank, and he could scarcely restrain himself from arguing with her. Then he remembered his promise to his absent parents and that Miss Brown was a credulous, suspicious old maid. He tried to forget his troubles by going after his fishing-rod. This he had left at the spot near the river where he had met Ned Foreman. Frank swung along whistling recklessly, but he did not feel at all pleasant or easy.
He had returned from his errand and was putting in a miserable enough time feeding some pet pigeons when a voice hailed him from the fence railings.
"Hey, Frank--this way for a minute."
Frank recognized a friend and crony of Samuel Mace. This was pompous, red- faced Judge Roseberry. He had once been elected by mistake a justice of the peace, had never gotten a second term, but for some eight or ten years had traded on his past reputation. He managed to eke out a living by giving what he called legal advice at a cheap rate, and mixing in politics. Sometimes