They found the girls in the dining-room, unaware of what had befallen them. They had slept late and the clock on the mantel registered half-past nine as the three men filed into the room. The general was calm, pompous, austere, but Henrietta had not lived with him for five and thirty years without having acquired the ability to read his every mood. "Father," she asked, "what’s the matter? Have your sins found you out?" The general waited for the slatternly maid-servant to give them their breakfast and leave the room before he spoke. "We have been robbed," he said calmly, casually, as one would mention the weather. His tones implied that he was perfectly willing to listen to reason, but that he knew who the thief was and anything stated to the contrary was not reason. "I spend my whole life, father," said Henrietta, "finding the articles you have been robbed of. Your system is all right. You have a place for everything, but you never remember the place." The Watermelon pulled out the linings of his empty pockets and held out his wrists that they might see the cuffs tied together by a bit of string. Henrietta and Billy stared. "I have never had a thief in my room," cried Billy. "I would like to see how it feels." "I’m not robbed," said Henrietta, making a hurried examination of the small-sized trunk she carried as a hand-bag. "It’s the stable-boy," said the general. "I noticed him carefully last night. He would not look any one in the face." "He goes home every night," objected Henrietta. "Mrs. Parker told me so." "That’s no reason he couldn’t come back," said the general. "No," said Henrietta. "But because a boy won’t look at you is no reason to say that he is a thief." "He does look at you, anyway," said Billy innocently. "He looked at me." "It was clever in him to take our checkbooks," said Bartlett. "He will forge our names," declared the general. "I made a check out to pay for the board here, signed it, too, I remember, and then I found some cash and thought I would use that and went to bed and forgot to destroy the check. I know it was the stable-boy for my room has a balcony in front, over the porch, and last night it was so warm I left the door open." "Maybe it was," agreed Henrietta. "I hate to suspect him, though." *CHAPTER XVII* *ALPHONSE RIDES AWAY* "The stable-boy would have access to the back of the house, too," said the general, who felt that if he had not become a general and had escaped being a master mechanic, he would have been a famous detective. "Yes," agreed the Watermelon. "But I don’t think it is the boy. I was out until after eleven, and just before I came in I saw him drive up with the girl. They had been out to some dance and he left her and drove on."