While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity offered, Aunt Pollyasked him questions that were full of guile, and very deep-for she wanted to trap him intodamaging revealments.

Like many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity tobelieve she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she loved tocontemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low cunning.

Said she:"Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn't it?""Yes'm.""Powerful warm, warn't it?""Yes'm.""Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?"A bit of a scare shot through Tom-a touch of uncomfortable suspicion.

He searchedAunt Polly's face, but it told him nothing.

So he said:"No'm-well, not very much."The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom's shirt, and said:"But you ain't too warm now, though." And it flattered her to reflect that she haddiscovered that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing that that was what she had inher mind.

But in spite of her, Tom knew where the wind lay, now.

So he forestalled whatmight be the next move:"Some of us pumped on our heads-mine's damp yet.

See?"Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of circumstantial evidence, andmissed a trick.

Then she had a new inspiration:"Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to pump on your head,did you?

Unbutton your jacket!"The trouble vanished out of Tom's face.

He opened his jacket. His shirt collar wassecurely sewed."Bother! Well, go 'long with you. I'd made sure you'd played hookey and been aswimming.

But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you're a kind of a singed cat, as the saying is-better'n you look.

This time."