r with Bartley's money.

Bartley took the child from him, looked at her face, and said, "Little
darling, I shall love her as my own;" then he begged Hope to sit down in
the lobby till he should call him and introduce him to his clerks. "One
of them is a thief, I'm afraid."

He took the child inside, and gave her to his confederate, the nurse.

"Dear me," thought Hope, "only two clerks, and one of them dishonest. I
hope it is not that good-natured boy. Oh no! impossible."

And now Bartley returned, and at the same time Monckton came briskly in
through the little office.

At sight of him Bartley said, "Oh, Monckton, I gave that fellow Bolton a
week's notice. But he insists on going directly," Monckton replied,
slyly, that he was sorry to hear that.

"Suspicious? Eh?" said Bartley.

"So suspicious that if I were you--Indeed, Mr. Bartley, I think, in
justice to _me_, the matter ought to be cleared to the bottom."

"You are right," said Bartley: "I'll have him searched before he goes.
Fetch me a detective at once."

Bartley then wrote a line upon his card, and handed it to Monckton,
directing him to lose no time. He then rushed out of the house with an
air of virtuous indignation, and went to make some delicate arrangements
to carry out a fraud, which, begging his pardon, was as felonious, though
not so prosaic, as the one he suspected his young clerk of. Monckton was
at first a little taken aback by the suddenness of all this; but he was
too clear-headed to be long at fault. The matter was brought to a point.
Well, he must shoot flying.

In a moment he was at the safe, whipped out a bunch of false keys, opened
the safe, took out the cash-box, and swept all the gold it contained into
his own pockets, and took possession of the notes. Then he locked up the
cash-box again, restored it to the safe, locked that, and sat down at
Bartley's table. He ran over the notes with feverish fingers, and then
took the precaution to examine Bartley's day-book. His caution was
rewarded--he found that the notes Bolton had brought in were _numbered_.
He instantly made two parcels--clapped the unnumbered notes into his
pocket. The numbered ones he took in his hand into the lobby. Now this
lobby must be shortly described. First there was a door with a glass
window, but the window had dark blue gauze fixed to it, so that nobody
could see into the lobby from the office; but a person in the lobby, by
putting his eye close to the gauze, co