ur mind, eh, Pratt?" said Clinton, in a commiserating
tone, as he filled Arthur's glass, and shoved the bottle to Quirk; "if
so, here's to the end of it."

They touched glasses, and drank off the sparkling draught.

"Now for the story, whatever it is!" cried Clinton.

"It is no story, only a little affair that happened after I left you
this afternoon," returned Arthur.

"Indeed! after you left me! I am all impatience, my dear fellow, let's
hear."

In as few words as possible, dwelling as lightly as he could on what Mr.
Delancey had said to him, Arthur told it all as it had happened, his
companions listening attentively meanwhile.

"Why, my dear soul!" cried Clinton, clapping his hand on Arthur's
shoulder, as he finished speaking, "your pocket must have been picked.
There's always a crowd in the street at that time of day, and somebody
has just been cute enough to rob you."

"So Mr. Delancey thought, and he said probably you did it," returned
Arthur, though in the tone of one who tells what he feels assured is
false.

"The deuce he did!" exclaimed Clinton, filling the glasses again, and
holding up his own to conceal the flush upon his face.

"Well, it's too bad anyhow," said Quirk, with returning good nature.
"You don't get any credit for honesty, and have to bear the loss
besides--outrageous!"

"How did the old man know anything about me?" said Clinton, with an
indifferent air; "I'll have to call him out, if he touches upon my
character in this style."

Quirk laughed, and Arthur hastened to explain to Clinton how the remark
had been made, and how light a bearing, after all, it had upon himself.

Clinton received it with a careless bow, as if, at best, he considered
it a matter of no consequence.

"And so he actually insinuated that you had it, eh, in the end?"

"Yes--and that's the most I care for; if he had believed me honest, I
could have borne the rest unmurmuringly; but to be thought a thief!"

"It seems hard enough, don't it?" said Clinton, in a tone of sympathetic
kindness, well-calculated to win on the trusting heart beside him, and
laying one hand familiarly on Arthur's knee.

"It's a deuced piece of business, that's all about it!" cried Quirk,
growing excited with the wine he had swallowed; "it's an insult I
wouldn't take from any man--old or young, or little or big; I'll be
dem'd if I would."

An insult! that was a light in which he had not exactly placed it
before, and Arthur's blood ros