now whether it
was a cheque or a note that the parson had taken, and had never been
sufficiently interested in the matter to make any inquiry.

"But you've just said that Mr. Soames's cheque was the cheque the
parson stole," said the astonished landlord, turning with open eyes
upon his cousin.

"You be blowed," said Dan Stringer, the clerk, to Mr. John Stringer,
the landlord; and then walked out of the room back to the bar.

"I understand nothing about it,--nothing at all," said the gouty man.

"I understand nearly all about it," said Mr. Toogood, following the
red-nosed clerk. There was no necessity that he should trouble the
landlord any further. He left the room, and went through the bar, and
as he passed out along the hall, he found Dan Stringer with his hat
on talking to the waiter. The waiter immediately pulled himself up,
and adjusted his dirty napkin under his arm, after the fashion of
waiters, and showed that he intended to be civil to the customers of
the house. But he of the red nose cocked his hat, and looked with
insolence at Mr. Toogood, and defied him. "There's nothing I do hate
so much as them low-bred Old Bailey attorneys," said Mr. Dan Stringer
to the waiter, in a voice intended to reach Mr. Toogood's ears. Then
Mr. Toogood told himself that Dan Stringer was not the thief himself,
and that it might be very difficult to prove that Dan had even been
the receiver of stolen goods. He had, however, no doubt in his own
mind but that such was the case.

He first went to the police office, and there explained his business.
Nobody at the police office pretended to forget Mr. Soames's cheque,
or Mr. Crawley's position. The constable went so far as to swear that
there wasn't a man, woman, or child in all Barchester who was not
talking of Mr. Crawley at that very moment. Then Mr. Toogood went with
the constable to the private house of the mayor, and had a little
conversation with the mayor. "Not guilty!" said the mayor, with
incredulity, when he first heard the news about Crawley. But when he
heard Mr. Toogood's story, or as much of it as it was necessary that
he should hear, he yielded reluctantly. "Dear, dear!" he said. "I'd
have bet anything 'twas he who stole it." And after that he mayor was
quite sad. Only let us think what a comfortable excitement it would
create throughout England if it was surmised that an archbishop had
forged a deed; and how England would lose when it was discovered that
the archbi