“Because,” I started to say and then he rumpled my hair up some more and began talking and never gave me a chance.
“Because it was right in that copy of _Treasure Island_ that’s laying there,” he shouted, “and I’m _one big gump_, that’s what _I_ am! I got that copy of _Treasure Island_ out of the library this morning, because you were telling me about it, and right there in the middle of it was your plaguy old two buckarinos!”
Just for a minute I looked at him and I knew it was just like he said, because he was laughing—he was so blamed happy about it.
“How in the dickens did it get there?” he said.
“Anyway, you’ve got your two bucks back.”
“A lot I care about that,” I said; “jiminy, I’ve got something better than two dollars, and that’s friends, you can bet.”
Then I showed him the stain on the page of the book and we both sat there gaping at it and thinking.
“I’m hanged if I know,” Westy said; “it would take Tom Slade to dope that out.”
“Maybe Skinny was looking at the book and shut it with the two dollar bill inside,” I said.
All of a sudden he laid the book down open and laid the bill on it and then he laid the oar-lock on the bill. Then he just sat there like as if he was studying. Pretty soon he said, “We have to get a new copy for the library, anyway. Do you mind if I make another stain on this one? I’ve got a sort of an idea.”
So now I’ll tell you just what he did and you’ll see how it solved the puzzle. And, believe me, you’ll have to admit that Westy’s a pretty smart fellow. If you have an old book you don’t care anything about, you can even try it and you don’t even need an oar-lock. Westy turned to a new place in the book and then he laid the bill down on the right hand page. Then he laid the oar-lock on the bill. “That’s just exactly what you did when you laid the bill down in such a hurry that night you were fixing Skinny up. You laid it on the open book just like that—see?”
“Maybe I did.” I said, “but what’s the big idea, kind sir?”
“Well, then,” he said, “I came up here to get your two bucks for you, didn’t I? And you remember I told you there was a breeze blowing? Now what did I do—in the dark?”
“Why, you big galook, I felt around in the dark and lifted the oar-lock off the bill and then felt there for it, but the breeze was too quick for me. It blew the page over and I slapped my hand down on—what?”