"Why, sir, I saw it in his hand."

"Then it has got to Albion Villa; and we are
ruined."

"No, no, sir; you won't hear me: I am sure
I saw it fall out of his hand, when he was taken
ill: and, I think, but I won't be sure, he fell on
it. Any way, there was nothing in his hands
when I delivered him at Albion Villa; so it must
be here: I dare say you have thrown it into a
drawer or somewhere, promiscuously."

"No, no, Skinner," said Mr. Hardie, with
increasing alarm: " it is useless for us to deceive
ourselves: I was not three minutes in the room,
and thought of nothing but getting to town and
cashing the bills."

He rang the bell sharply, and on Betty coming
in, asked her what she had done with that paper
that was on the floor.

"Took it up and put it on the table, sir. This
was it, I think." And she laid her finger upon
a paper.

"No, no!" said Mr. Hardie: " the one I mean
was much smaller than that."

"What," said she, with that astonishing
memory for trifles people have who never read,
"was it a little crumpled up paper? lying by
the basket?"

"Yes! yes! that sounds like it."

"Oh, I put that into the basket."

Mr. Hardie's eye fell directly on the basket,
but it was empty. She caught his glance, and
told him she had emptied it in the dust-hole as
usual. Mr. Hardie uttered an angry exclamation.
Betty, an old servant of his wife's, resented
it with due dignity by tossing her head as
she retired.

"There is no help for it,' said Mr. Hardie,
bitterly; "we must go and grub in the dust-hole
now."

"Why, sir, your name is not on it, after all."

"What does that matter? A man is bound
by the act of his agent: besides, it is my form,
.and my initials are on it. Come, let us put a
good face on the thing." And he led the way to
the kitchen; and got up a little laugh, and asked
the scullery maid if she could show Mr. Skinner
and him the dust-hole. She stared, but obeyed,
and the pair followed her, making merry.

The dust-hole was empty.

The girl explained: " It is the dustman's day:
he came at eleven o'clock in the morning and
carr'd all the dust away: and grumbled at the
paper and the bones, he did. So I told him
beggars mustn't be choosers: just like his
impudence! when he gets it for nothing, and sells
it for a mint outside the town." The unwonted
visitors left her in dead silence almost before she
had finished her sentence.

Mr. Hardie sat down in his parlour thoroughly
discomposed; Skinner watched him furtively.

At last the former broke out: " This is the
devil's doing; the devil in person. No intelligence
nor ability can resist such luck. I almost
wish we had never meddled with it: we shall
never feel safe, never be safe."

Skinner made light of the matter— treated the
receipt as thrown into the sea. " Why, sir," said
he, "by this time it will have found its way to
that monstrous heap of ashes on the London
road; and who will ever look for it there? or
notice it if they find it?" Hardie shook his
head: " That monstrous heap is all sold every
year to the farmers. That Receipt, worth
14,000£ to me, will be strewed on the soil for
manure: then some farmer's man, or farmer's
boy that goes to the Sunday-school, will read it,
see Captain Dodd's name, and bring it to Albion
Villa, in hopes of a sixpence: a sixpence.
Heaven help the man who does a doubtful act,
and leaves damnatory evidence, on paper, kicking
about the world."

From that hour the cash Hardie carried in his
bosom, without a right to it, began to blister.

He thought of telling the dustman he had lost
a paper, and setting him to examine the mountain
of ashes on the London road: but here
caution stepped in; how could he describe the
paper without awakening curiosity and defeating
his own end? He gave that up. It was better
to let the sleeping dog lie.

Finally, he resolved to buy security in a world
where after all one has to buy everything; so
he employed an adroit agent, and quietly
purchased that mountain, the refuse of all
Barkington. But he felt so ill used, he paid for it in
his own notes; by this means the treaty reverted
to the primitive form of barter:* ashes for rags.
* Or exchange of commodities without the aid of
money: see Homer, and Welsh Villages, passim.

This transaction he concealed from his
confederate.

When he had completed it, he was not yet
secure; for another day had passed, and
Captain Dodd alive still. Men often recover from
apoplexy, especially when they survive the
first twenty-four hours. Should he live, he would
not now come into any friendly arrangement
with the man who had so nearly caused his death.
So then good-by to the matrimonial combination
Hardie had at first relied on to patch his debt
to Alfred, and his broken fortunes. Then as to
keeping the money and defying Dodd, that would
be very difficult and dangerous; mercantile bills
are traceable things: and criminal prosecutions
awkward ones. He found himself in a situation
he could not see liis way through by any mental
effort; there were so many objections to every
course, and so many to its opposite. " He walked
among fires," as the Latins say. But the more
he pondered on the course to be taken should
Dodd live, the plainer did this dilemma stare him
in the face; either he must refund, or fly the
country with another man's money, and leave
behind him the name of a thief. Parental love,
and the remains of self-respect, writhed at this
thought; and with these combined a sentiment
less genuine, but by no means feeble; the love
of reputation. So it was with a reluctant and
sick heart he went to the shipping office, and