bank, and there are three things on the
bill which enable me to identify it. The cashier's pen snapped when he
wrote his name on the left, and blotted the bill. The corner was torn
off, and it was mended in another place with a piece of paper from the
edge of a sheet of six-cent postage stamps."

The ill-visaged man spoke confidently, and whatever his character, his
testimony was very clear.

"What has all this to do with me?" asked Bobtail, who did not yet
understand the situation.

The lawyer smiled, and perhaps he thought that the boy was playing his
part extremely well for a novice.

"My testimony will come in next," added Squire Gilfilian. "This
afternoon, Mrs. Taylor, who is the mother of this boy, paid me five
hundred dollars, for I had foreclosed the mortgage on her husband's
house. Now, Mrs. Taylor, where did you get the bill?"

"Robert didn't give it to me," she replied; and she seemed to be very
much troubled and very much embarrassed; so much so, that her looks and
actions were the worst possible evidence against her.

"So you say, Mrs. Taylor; but you don't answer my question."

"I can't tell you now where I got it," stammered the poor woman.

Ezekiel Taylor and Little Bobtail were more astonished at this answer
than any other person in the room. Both of them wondered where she had
obtained so much money, while the others in the office believed that her
answer was merely a subterfuge to conceal the guilt of her son. Ezekiel
could not help thinking, just then, that his wife always had money;
that, while she had no visible means of obtaining it, she always had
enough to feed and clothe the family. He had considered this subject,
and wondered over it before; and the only solution of the mystery he
could suggest was, that her first husband had left her more money than
she ever acknowledged he did, and she had concealed it to prevent him
from spending it. As to her son, he had never thought of the matter at
all. All that confused and confounded him was, his mother's refusal to
answer what seemed to him a very simple question.

"Mrs. Taylor, you will be a witness, and the most important one in the
case, when it comes up before Squire Norwood to-morrow," added the
lawyer.

"I suppose I shall," replied Mrs. Taylor, with a gasp.

"You will be put under oath, and compelled to testify."

"But you are not under oath now, and you need not say anything, if you
don't wish to," said Mr. Brooks.

"As the ma