"Or are you again lying?
You said, four years ago, that he had 'got into trouble;' that was your excuse for keeping him from me.

Or was that a lie, too ?" His manner changed and softened, but not for any pity for his companion, but rather from some change in his own feelings.

"Oh, that," he said, with a rough laugh, "that was only a kind o' trouble any sassy kid like him was likely to get into.

You ain't got no call to hear that, for," he added, with a momentary return to his previous manner, "the wrong that was done him is MY lookout! You want to know what I did with him, how he's been looked arter, and where he is?
You want the worth of your money.

That's square enough.