ng,
and she thought they must have clapped hands on her lodger.

Dame Anthony at once jumped at that conclusion. The pressing of fifty
men had indeed made a great stir in the town during the last two days.
The mayor's office had been thronged by angry women complaining of their
husbands or sons being dragged away; and the mayor had been the object
of many threats and much indignation, and had the evening before
returned home bespattered with mud, having been pelted on his way from
the town hall by the women, and having only been saved from more serious
assaults by the exertions of the constables.

Dame Anthony had been surprised that her husband had taken these things
so quietly. Some of the women had indeed been seized and set in the
stocks, but the mayor had made light of the affair, and had altogether
seemed in an unusually good state of temper. Dame Anthony at once
connected this with Jack's disappearance. She knew that the list had
been made out by the mayor, and the idea that her husband had taken this
means of getting rid of Jack, and that he was exulting over the success
of his scheme, flashed across her. As the mayor was away at the town
hall she was forced to wait till his return to dinner; but no sooner
had the meal been concluded and Andrew Carson and the two assistants had
left the table than she began:

"Richard, I want to look at the list of the men who were pressed."

The request scarcely came as a surprise upon the clothier. He had made
up his mind that his wife would be sure sooner or later to discover
that Jack was missing, and would connect his disappearance with the
operations of the press gang.

"What do you want to see that for?" he asked shortly.

"I want to see who have been taken," his wife said. "There is no secret
about it, I suppose?"

"No, there is no secret," the mayor replied. "According to the act of
parliament and the request of her majesty's minister I drew up a list
of fifty of the most useless and disreputable of the inhabitants of
this town, and I rejoice to say that the place is rid of them all. The
respectable citizens are all grateful to me for the manner in which
I have fulfilled the task laid upon me, and as to the clamor of a few
angry women, it causes me not a moment's annoyance."

"I don't know why you are telling me all this, Richard," his wife said
calmly. "I did not cast any reflections as to the manner in which you
made your choice. I only said I wished to see t