gave a loud rap upon the desk with her clenched
fist, and cried, 'I've hit it!'--as indeed she had, and chipped a piece
out of it too; but that was not her meaning.

'Well,' cried Brass anxiously. 'Go on, will you!'

'Why,' replied his sister with an air of triumph, 'hasn't there been
somebody always coming in and out of this office for the last three or
four weeks; hasn't that somebody been left alone in it
sometimes--thanks to you; and do you mean to tell me that that somebody
isn't the thief!'

'What somebody?' blustered Brass.

'Why, what do you call him--Kit.'

'Mr Garland's young man?'

'To be sure.'

'Never!' cried Brass. 'Never. I'll not hear of it. Don't tell
me'--said Sampson, shaking his head, and working with both his hands as
if he were clearing away ten thousand cobwebs. 'I'll never believe it
of him. Never!'

'I say,' repeated Miss Brass, taking another pinch of snuff, 'that he's
the thief.'

'I say,' returned Sampson violently, 'that he is not. What do you
mean? How dare you? Are characters to be whispered away like this?
Do you know that he's the honestest and faithfullest fellow that ever
lived, and that he has an irreproachable good name? Come in, come in!'

These last words were not addressed to Miss Sally, though they partook
of the tone in which the indignant remonstrances that preceded them had
been uttered. They were addressed to some person who had knocked at
the office-door; and they had hardly passed the lips of Mr Brass, when
this very Kit himself looked in.

'Is the gentleman up-stairs, sir, if you please?'

'Yes, Kit,' said Brass, still fired with an honest indignation, and
frowning with knotted brows upon his sister; 'Yes Kit, he is. I am
glad to see you Kit, I am rejoiced to see you. Look in again, as you
come down-stairs, Kit. That lad a robber!' cried Brass when he had
withdrawn, 'with that frank and open countenance! I'd trust him with
untold gold. Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to step directly to
Wrasp and Co.'s in Broad Street, and inquire if they have had
instructions to appear in Carkem and Painter. THAT lad a robber,'
sneered Sampson, flushed and heated with his wrath. 'Am I blind, deaf,
silly; do I know nothing of human nature when I see it before me? Kit
a robber! Bah!'

Flinging this final interjection at Miss Sally with immeasurable scorn
and contempt, Sampson Brass thrust his head into his desk, as if to
shut the base world from his