own the steps of another office, who, without
pausing even to apologise, sprang into a cab that was waiting, without
observing that he had dropped a small leather bag he held in his hand.
Bertie, whose hat had been knocked off in the encounter, stooped to pick
it up, picked up the bag at the same time, and glanced at the hansom
fast disappearing amongst the crowd of others. It was no use to shout,
much less to run, but having begun to learn to think, he acted with a
good deal of decision. Hailing another cab that chanced to be near, he
bade the driver follow the one that had just started, as the gentleman
had dropped something, and the cabby, who had witnessed the whole
transaction, nodded and drove on; but a few minutes had been lost; the
first vehicle was a private one, with a good horse, Bertie's was a
worn-out old creature, that ought not to have been in harness at all, so
that it was just as much as the driver could do to keep it in sight. In
the City, owing to several blocks, they almost lost it; and when they
got into more fashionable regions amongst the less-frequented streets
and quiet squares of the West End, matters were still worse, but at
length, turning suddenly round a corner, they saw the identical cab
standing before a large, gloomy-looking house, and its occupant speaking
hurriedly to another gentleman on the steps. Bertie sprang out and ran
up, flushed, breathless, and excited.

"If you please, sir, you dropped this in Mincing Lane," he said, "and I
followed you as quickly as ever I could."

One of the gentlemen uttered a little cry of dismay, and almost
staggered against the railing for support. In his hurry and confusion,
his eagerness to deliver a pressing message, and get the documents back
to the City, he had not discovered their loss at all. The other
gentleman caught the boy by the arm, and then uttered an exclamation of
still greater astonishment. "Oh! Bertie Rivers, I see. So you found my
clerk's bag?"

"Yes, sir," Bertie replied, very much surprised to discover in the same
moment that one speaker was Mr. Murray, the other the gentleman who had
come up in the train with him that morning, the bag the very one that
had excited his curiosity on two previous occasions, and caused him to
be disturbed from his pleasant dream.

"How did you know the person it belonged to? Why did you come here with
it?" Mr. Murray asked, after a keen, searching glance at Bertie's face.
He was a shrewd, suspiciou