nd began to look rather anxious and
frightened.

"Not my shopman?" says he. "I hope, for the man's own sake, it's not my
shopman."

"Guess again, sir," says I.

"That idle slut, the maid?" says he.

"She is idle, sir," says I, "and she is also a slut; my first inquiries
about her proved as much as that. But she's not the thief."

"Then, in the name of heaven, who is?" says he.

"Will you please to prepare yourself for a very disagreeable surprise,
sir?" says I. "And, in case you lose your temper, will you excuse
remarking that I am the stronger man of the two, and that, if you allow
yourself to lay hands on me, I may unintentionally hurt you, in pure
self-defence."

He turned as pale as ashes, and pushed his chair two or three feet away
from me.

"You have asked me to tell you, sir, who has taken your money," I went
on. "If you insist on my giving you an answer--"

"I do insist," he said, faintly. "Who has taken it?"

"Your wife has taken it," I said, very quietly, and very positively at
the same time.

He jumped out of the chair as if I had put a knife into him, and struck
his fist on the table so heavily that the wood cracked again.

"Steady, sir," says I. "Flying into a passion won't help you to the
truth."

"It's a lie!" says he, with another smack of his fist on the table--"a
base, vile, infamous lie! How dare you--"

He stopped, and fell back into the chair again, looked about him in a
bewildered way, and ended by bursting out crying.

"When your better sense comes back to you, sir," says I, "I am sure you
will be gentleman enough to make an apology for the language you have
just used. In the mean time, please to listen, if you can, to a word of
explanation. Mr. Sharpin has sent in a report to our inspector of the
most irregular and ridiculous kind, setting down not only all his own
foolish doings and sayings, but the doings and sayings of Mrs. Yatman as
well. In most cases, such a document would have been fit only for the
wastepaper basket; but in this particular case it so happens that Mr.
Sharpin's budget of nonsense leads to a certain conclusion, which the
simpleton of a writer has been quite innocent of suspecting from the
beginning to the end. Of that conclusion I am so sure that I will
forfeit my place if it does not turn out that Mrs. Yatman has been
practising upon the folly and conceit of this young man, and that she
has tried to shield herself from discovery by purposely encouraging