Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to get new facts, from a
confidential and highly authoritative source. In the light of these--I
wish I could explain them more fully to you, but I was pledged to
secrecy--I am obliged to tell you that what you had written seemed to me
altogether out of focus, unfair, and extreme."
"Did you get these facts, as you call them, from Plonny Neal?"
"As to that, I am at liberty to say nothing."
Queed, looking at him, saw that he had. He began to feel sorry for West.
"I would give four hundred and fifty dollars," he said slowly--"all the
money that I happen to have--if you had told me last night that you
meant to do this."
"I am awfully sorry," said West, with a touch of dignity, "that you take
it so hard. But I assure you--"
"I know Plonny Neal even better than you do," continued Queed, "for I
have known him as his social equal. He is laughing at you to-day."
West, of course, knew better than that. The remark confirmed his belief
that Queed had brooded over the reformatory till he saw everything about
it distorted and magnified.
"Well, old fellow," he said, without a trace of ill-humor in his voice
or his manner, "then it is I he is laughing at--not you.
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