VERY HARD CASH.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THERE was not a moment to lose, so Green
emptied the pocket-book into his hat, and sifted
the contents in a turn of the hand, announcing
each discovery in a whisper to his excited, and
peering, associates:-

"A lot of receipts."

"Of no use to any one but me," said the
prisoner earnestly.

"Two miniatures; gold rims, pinchbeck
backs."

"They are portraits of my children when
young: Heaven forgive me, I could not give
them up to my creditors: surely, surely, you will
not rob me of them."

"Stash your gab," said Mr. Green roughly.
"Here's a guinea, Queen Anne's reign."

"It belonged to my great-grandfather: take it,
but you will let me redeem it; I will give £5 for
it, poor as I am: you can leave it on my doorstep,
and I'll leave the £5"

"Stow your gab. Letters; papers covered
with figures. Stay, what is this? a lot of memoranda."

"They are of the most private and delicate
character. Pray do not expose my family misfortunes."
And Mr. Hardie, who of late had
been gathering composure, showed some signs of
agitation; the two figures glaring over his
shoulder shared it, and his remonstrance only
made Green examine the papers keenly: they
might contain some clue to the missing money.
It proved a miscellaneous record: the price of
Stocks at various days; notes of the official
assignee's remarks in going over the books, &c.
At last, however, Green's quick eye fell upon a
fainter entry in pencil; figures: 1, 4; yes, actually
£14,000. "All right," he said: and took the
paper close to the lantern, and began to spell it
out:

"'This day Alfred told me to my face I had
£14,000 of Captain Dodd's. We had an angry
discussion. What can he mean? Drs. Wycherley
and Osmond, this same day, afflicted me with hints
that he is deranged, or partly. I saw no signs of
it before. Wrote to my brother entreating him
to give me £200 to replace the sum which I really
have wronged this respectable and now most                                                        afflicted family of. I had better withdraw—'"
Here Mr. Hardie interrupted him with sorrowful
dignity: "These are mere family matters; if you
are a man, respect them."

Green went reading on like Fate: " ' Better
withdraw my opposition to the marriage, or else
it seems my own flesh and blood will go about
the place blackening my reputation. '"

Mr. Hardie stamped on the ground. "I tell
you on my honour as a gentleman there's no
money there but my grandfather's guinea. My
money is all in my waistcoat-pocket, where you
will not look."

A flutter of uneasiness seemed to come over
the detective: he darkened his lantern, and
replaced the pocket-book hurriedly in the prisoner's
breast, felt him all over in a minute, and, to keep
up the farce, robbed him.

"Only eight yellow boys," said he                                                              contemptuously to his mates. He then slipped the
money back into Hardie's coat-pocket, and
conducted him to his own gate, tied him to it by the
waist, and ordered him not to give the alarm for
ten minutes on pain of death.

"I consent," said Mr. Hardie, " and thank you
for abstaining from violence."

"All right, my tulip," said Mr. Green cheerfully;
and drew his companions quietly away.
But the next moment he began to run, and,
making a sudden turn, dived into a street, then
into a passage, and so winded and doubled
till he got to a small public-house: he used some
flash word, and they were shown a private room.
"Wait here an hour for me," he whispered; " I
must see who liberates him, and whether he is
really as innocent as he reads, or we have been
countermined by the Devil's own tutor."

The unexpected turn the evidence had taken,
evidence of their own choosing too, cleared Mr.
Hardie with the unprofessionals. Edward
embraced this conclusion as a matter of course, and
urged the character of that gentleman's solitary
traducer; Alfred was a traitor, and therefore
why not a slanderer?

Even Sampson, on the whole, inclined to a
similar conclusion.

At this crisis of the discussion a red-haired
pedlar, with very large whiskers and the remains
of a black eye, put his head in, and asked whether
Tom Green was there. " No," said the Doctor