stoutly, not desiring company of this stamp
"Don't know the lad."

The pedlar laughed: " There is not many that
do know him at all hours; however, he is here
sir." And he whipped off the red hair, and
wiped off the black eye, and lo Green ipse. He
received their compliments on his Protean powers
and told them he had been just a minute too late;
Mr. Hardie was gone, and so he had lost the
chance of seeing who came to help him, and of
hearing the first words that passed between the
two: this, he said, was a very great pity; for it
would have shown him in one moment whether
certain suspicions of his were correct. Pressed
as to what these suspicions were, he begged to
be excused saying any more for the present
The Doctor however would not let him off so,
but insisted on his candid opinion.

"Well, sir," said Green, " I never was more
puzzled in my life, owing to not being near hand
when he was untied. It looks all square
however. There's only one little thing that don't fit
somehow."

They both asked in a breath what that was.

"The sovs. were all marked."

They asked how he knew; and had he got
them in his pocket to show?

Green uttered a low chuckling laugh: "What
me fake the beans, now I live on this side the
hedge? never knew a cove mix his liquors that
way but it hurt his health soon or late. No, I
took them out of one pocket, and felt of them as
I slipped them into the other. Ye see, gents,
to do any good on my lay, a man must train
his senses as well as his mind: he must have a
hare's ear, and a hawk's eye, a bloodhound's
nose, and a lady's hand with steel fingers and a
silk skin. Now look at that bunch of fives,"
continued the master; and laid a hand white and
soft as a duchess's on the table: "it can put
the bracelets on a giant, or find a sharper's
nail-mark on the back of the knave of clubs. The
beans were marked. Which it is a small
thing, but it don't fit the rest. Here's an
unsuspicious gent took by surprise, in moonlight
meditation fancy free, and all his little private family
matters found in his innocent bosom quite
promiscuous; but his beans marked: that don't
dovetail nohow. Gents, did ever you hear of the
man that went to the bottom of the bottomless
pit to ease his mind? Well, he was the head of
my family: I must go to the bottom whether
there's one or not. And just now I see but one
way."

"And what is that?" inquired both his
companions in some alarm.

"Oh, I mustn't threaten it," said Green, " or
I shall never have the stomach to do it. But
dear me, this boozing ken is a very unfit place
for you, you are champagne-gents not dog's nose
ones. Now you part and make tracks for
home, one on foot, and one in a fly. You won't
see me, nor hear of me again, till I've something
fresh."

And so the confederates parted, and Sampson
and Edward met at Albion Villa; and Edward
told his mother what they had done, and his
conviction that Mr. Hardie was innocent, and Alfred
a slanderer as well as a traitor: "And indeed,"
said he, "if we had but stopped to reflect, we
should have seen how unlikely the money was
not to be lost in the Agra. Why the 'Tiser
says she went to pieces almost directly she
struck. What we ought to have done was, not
to listen to Alfred Hardie like fools, but write
to Lloyd's like people in their senses. I'll do it
this minute, and find out the surviving officers
of the ship: they will be able to give us
information on that head." Mrs. Dodd approved;
and said she would write to her kind correspondent
Mrs. Beresford: and she did sit down to
her desk at once. As for Sampson he returned
to town next morning, not quite convinced, but
thoroughly staggered; and determined for once
to resign his own judgment, and abide the result
of Mrs. Dodd's correspondence and Mr. Green's
sagacity. All he insisted on was, that his
placard about Alfred should be continued: he
left money for this, and Edward against the
grain consented to see it done. But placards
are no monopoly: in the afternoon only a section
of Sampson's was visible in most parts of the
town by reason of a poster to this effect pasted
half over it:

"FIFTY GUINEAS REWARD.

"Whereas yesterday evening at 10 o'clock
Richard Hardie Esq. of Musgrove Cottage,
Barkington, was assaulted at his own door by
three ruffians, who rifled his pockets, and read
his private memoranda, and committed other
acts of violence, the shock of which has laid him
on a bed of sickness, the above reward shall be
paid to any person, or persons, who will give
such information as shall lead to the detection of
all or any one of the miscreants concerned in
this outrage.

The above reward will be paid by Mr. Thomas
Hardie of Clare Court Yorkshire."

On this the impartial police came to Mr.
Hardie's and made inquiries. He received them
in bed, and told them particulars: and they
gathered from Peggy that she had heard a cry
of distress, and opened the kitchen door; and
that Betty and she had ventured out together,
and found poor master tied to the gate with an
old cord; this she produced, and the police
inspected and took it away with them.

At sight of the Notice, Edward felt cold and
then hot, and realised the false and perilous
position into which he had been betrayed: "So
nuch for being wiser than the law," he said:
"what are we now but three footpads?" This,
and the insult his sister had received, made the
place poison to him; and hastened their departure
by a day or two: the very next day (Thursday)
an affiche on the walls of Albion Villa
announced that Mr. Chippenham, auctioneer,
would sell next Wednesday on the premises
the greater part of the furniture, plate, china,