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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