o
Tregarthen, and clapping his hand upon his shoulder,--"how may you know
it?"

"When we were fellow-clerks," replied Tregarthen, "in that London house,
it was one of my duties to enter daily in a certain book an account of
the sums received that day by the firm, and afterward paid into the
bankers'. One memorable day,--a Wednesday, the black day of my
life,--among the sums I so entered was one of five hundred pounds."

"I begin to make it out," said the captain. "Yes?"

"It was one of Clissold's duties to copy from this entry a memorandum of
the sums which the clerk employed to go to the bankers' paid in there. It
was my duty to hand the money to Clissold; it was Clissold's to hand it
to the clerk, with that memorandum of his writing. On that Wednesday I
entered a sum of five hundred pounds received. I handed that sum, as I
handed the other sums in the day's entry, to Clissold. I was absolutely
certain of it at the time; I have been absolutely certain of it ever
since. A sum of five hundred pounds was afterward found by the house to
have been that day wanting from the bag, from Clissold's memorandum, and
from the entries in my book. Clissold, being questioned, stood upon his
perfect clearness in the matter, and emphatically declared that he asked
no better than to be tested by 'Tregarthen's book.' My book was
examined, and the entry of five hundred pounds was not there."

"How not there," said the captain, "when you made it yourself?"

Tregarthen continued:--

"I was then questioned. Had I made the entry? Certainly I had. The
house produced my book, and it was not there. I could not deny my book;
I could not deny my writing. I knew there must be forgery by some one;
but the writing was wonderfully like mine, and I could impeach no one if
the house could not. I was required to pay the money back. I did so;
and I left the house, almost broken-hearted, rather than remain
there,--even if I could have done so,--with a dark shadow of suspicion
always on me. I returned to my native place, Lanrean, and remained
there, clerk to a mine, until I was appointed to my little post here."

"I well remember," said the captain, "that I told you that if you had no
experience of ill judgments on deceiving appearances, you were a lucky
man. You went hurt at that, and I see why. I'm sorry."

"Thus it is," said Tregarthen. "Of my own innocence I have of course
been sure; it has been at once my comfort and my trial