luable advice to the
barber's daughter, and his late employer had received the full benefit
of it. If he, Mr. Wittleworth, had been so vicious and depraved, so
lost to the high instincts of a gentleman, as wilfully and maliciously
to have given Miss Maggimore bad advice--advice not based on his
experience and knowledge of the world; in a word, if he had told her
that the papers were good for nothing, the young lady would doubtless
have destroyed them.

Instead of this, he had been upright and conscientious; he had given
good, wholesome counsel, worthy of his knowledge and experience. Miss
Maggimore had actually asked him if the papers were good for anything;
and he had actually informed her that they were very valuable, thus
saving them from a devastating conflagration in the cooking-stove. Miss
Maggimore had actually been paid five hundred dollars for opening that
chest, and taking therefrom the package of papers; while he, who had
furnished the intelligence, supplied the brains, and even the physical
power by which the papers had been conveyed to the banker's office, had
not received a cent!

There was something wrong, in the opinion of Mr. Wittleworth. The
reward should be at least equally shared between him and her. In the
morning he had made up his mind that fifty dollars would pay her
handsomely, while the four hundred and fifty would not be an
over-adequate compensation for the brains of the transaction. His
calculations had been set at nought. He knew the value of those papers,
but he had given the banker credit for integrity he did not possess,
and had lost all. The world was always hard on Mr. Wittleworth, and at
this time it seemed to be peculiarly savage towards him, especially as
he had been out of business three months, and needed money badly.

It would be useless for him to represent his redeeming agency in the
affair to Mr. Checkynshaw. The great man refused to acknowledge his
shining abilities. Mr. Checkynshaw was prejudiced--he was. But the
barber was a singularly simple-hearted man. He would not rob a flea of
the mite of warm blood needed for its supper. Maggie was known
throughout the neighborhood as a good little girl, and Leo was a mere
tinker. These people might be brought to see the justice of his claim,
and to acknowledge that through his advice and influence the papers had
been saved from destruction, and restored to their owner; or, to put
the matter in its most direct form, that he had ena