Consequently, after some further progress up- stream, he rested on his oars, and said, "I've not been out on the water since the day of the boat-race." "Aren't you, though ?" said Tom.
A pause.
"That was a queer thing, the rudder-line breaking that day," said Riddell, looking hard at his young companion.
Tom apparently did not quite like it.

Either it seemed as if Riddell thought _he_ knew something about the affair, or else his conscience was not quite easy.
"In course it was," replied he, surlily.

"I knows nothink about it." Riddell, for a quiet, nervous boy, was shrewd for his age, and there was something in Tom's constrained and uncomfortable manner as he made this disclaimer that convinced him that after all the mysterious letter _had_ something in it.
It was a bold step to take, he knew, and it might end in a failure, but he would chance it at any rate.
"You do know something about it, Tom!" said he, sternly, and with a searching look at the young waterman.
Tom did! He didn't say so! Indeed he violently denied that he did, and broke out into a state of most virtuous indignation.
"Well I ever, if that ain't a nice thing to say to a chap.

I tell you, I knows nothink about it.

The idea! What 'ud I know anythink about it for?
I tell you you're out, governor.