Mr. Carruthers with as much bow as is possible
to his stout figure. Could they speak to him
for a moment? by all manner of means; will
Mr. Carruthers walk into the back shop? where
Miss Evans, a buxom girl with many shaking
curls, is discovered working a pair of Berlin
wool slippers, at a glance too small for her father,
and is put to flight with much blushing and
giggling. The two gentlemen seat themselves
in the old-fashioned black horsehair chairs, and
Mr. Evans, a little excited, stands by them with
his thumbs in his arm-holes, and flaps his hands
occasionally, as though they were fins.

"This gentleman, Mr. Evans," says Mr.
Carruthers — giving this happy specimen of his
acumen and discretion in a loud and pompous tone
—"has come from Lord Wolstenholme, the
Secretary of State for the Home Department."
Mr. Evans gives a fin-flap, indicative of profound
respect. "He has been sent here to——"

"Will you permit me in the very mildest
manner to interrupt you, my dear sir?" says
Mr. Dalrymple, in dulcet accents. "You put
the matter admirably — from the magisterial
point of view — but perhaps if I were just to——
You have no objection? Thank you! You've
lived a long time in Amherst, Mr. Evans?"

"I've been a master tailor here, sir,
forty-three years last Michaelmas."

"Forty-three years! Long time, indeed! And
you're the tailor of the neighbourhood, eh?"

"Well, sir, I think I may say we make for all
the gentry round — Mr. Carruthers of Poynings,
sir, and Sir Thomas Boldero, and——"

"Of course — of course! You've a gold-printed
label, I think, which you generally sew on to all
goods made by you?"

"We have, sir — that same. With my name
upon it."

"With your name upon it. Just so! Now, I
suppose that label is never sewed on to anything
which has not been either made or sold by you?"

"Which has not been made, sir! We don't
sell anything except our own make—  Evans of
Amherst don't."

"Exactly; and very proper, too." To Mr.
Carruthers: "Settles one point, my dear sir—
must have been made here! Now, Mr. Evans,
you make all sorts of coats, of course, blue
Witney overcoats among the number?"

Mr. Evans, after a hesitating fin-flap, says:
"A blue Witney overcoat, sir, is a article seldom
if ever called for in these parts. I shouldn't say
we'd made one within the last two years leastways,
more than one."

"But you think you did make one?"

"There were one, sir, made to order from a
party that was staying at the Lion."

"Staying at the Lion? The inn, of course, where
I slept last night. How long ago was that?"

"That were two years ago, sir."

"That won't do!" cries Mr. Dalrymple, in
disappointed tone.

"Two years ago that it were made and that
the party was at the Lion. The coat was sold
less than three months ago."

"Was it? To whom ?"

"To a stranger—  slim young gent who came
in here one day promiscuous, and wanted an
overcoat. He had that blue Witney, he had!"

"Now, my dear Mr. Evans," says Mr.
Dalrymple, laying his hand lightly on Mr. Evans's
shirt-sleeve, and looking up from under his
bushy brows into the old man's face, "just try
and exercise your memory a little about this
stranger. Give us a little more description of
him — his age, height, general appearance, and
that sort of thing!"

But Mr. Evans's memory is quite unaccustomed
to exercise, and cannot be jogged, or
ensnared, or bullied into any kind of action. The
stranger was young, "middling height," appearance,
"well, gen-teel and slim-like;" and wild
horses could not extract further particulars from
Mr. Evans than these. Stay. "What did he
give for the coat, and in what money did he pay
for it?" There's a chance. Mr. Evans
remembers that he "gev fifty-three-and-six for
the overcoat, and handed in a ten-pun' note for
change. A ten-pound note, which, as Mr. Evans,
by a further tremendous effort, recollects, had
"the stamp of our post-office on it, as I pinted
out to the gent at the time." Was the note
there? No; Mr. Evans had paid it into the
County Bank to his little account with some
other money, but he quite recollected the
post-office stamp being on it.

Mr. Carruthers thinks this a great point, but
is dashed by Mr. Dalrymple's telling him, on
their way from the tailor's, that all bank-notes
passing through post-offices receive the official
stamp. This statement is corroborated at the
Amherst Post-office, where no money-order of
that amount, or of anything equivalent to that
amount, has been recently paid, the remittances
in that form being, as the postmaster explains,
generally to the canal boatmen or the railway
people, and of small value.

So there the clue fails suddenly and entirely,
and Mr. Carruthers and Mr. Dalrymple again
mount the big swinging barouche and are driven
back to Poynings to dinner, which meal is not,
however, graced by the presence of either of the
ladies; for Mrs. Carruthers is too ill to leave her
room, and Clare is in attendance on her. So the
gentlemen eat a solemn dinner by themselves,
and talk a solemn conversation; and at eight
o'clock Mr. Dalrymple goes away, driven by Gibson,
coachman, in the carriage, and turning over
in his mind how best to make something out of
the uneventful day for the information of the
Home Secretary.

That dignitary occupies also much of the
attention of Mr. Carruthers, left in dignified solitude
in the dining-room before the decanters of
wine and the dishes of fruit, oblivious of his wife's
indisposition, and wholly unobservant of the
curiosity with which Mr. Downing, his butler and
body-servant, surveys him on entering the room
to suggest the taking of tea. Very unusual is it
for the Poynings servants to regard their master
with curiosity, or indeed with any feeling that