, have a certain rascally custom which comes within the daily
experience of our office. A married lady who wishes it can keep two
accounts at her dress-maker's:--one is the account which her husband
sees and pays; the other is the private account, which contains all the
extravagant items, and which the wife pays secretly, by instalments,
whenever she can. According to our usual experience, these instalments
are mostly squeezed out of the housekeeping money. In your case, I
suspect no instalments have been paid; proceedings have been threatened;
Mrs. Yatman, knowing your altered circumstances, has felt herself
driven into a corner; and she has paid her private account out of your
cashbox."

"I won't believe it!" says he. "Every word you speak is an abominable
insult to me and to my wife."

"Are you man enough, Sir," says I, taking him up short, in order to save
time and words, "to get that receipted bill you spoke of just now, off
the file, and to come with me at once to the milliner's shop where Mrs.
Yatman deals?"

He turned red in the face at that, got the bill directly, and put on his
hat. I took out of my pocket-book the list containing the numbers of the
lost notes, and we left the house together immediately.

Arrived at the milliner's, (one of the expensive West-End houses, as I
expected,) I asked for a private interview, on important business, with
the mistress of the concern. It was not the first time that she and I
had met over the same delicate investigation. The moment she set eyes on
me, she sent for her husband. I mentioned who Mr. Yatman was, and what
we wanted.

"This is strictly private?" says the husband. I nodded my head.

"And confidential?" says the wife. I nodded again.

"Do you see any objection, dear, to obliging the Sergeant with a sight
of the books?" says the husband.

"None in the world, love, if you approve of it," says the wife.

All this while poor Mr. Yatman sat looking the picture of astonishment
and distress, quite out of place at our polite conference. The books
were brought,--and one minute's look at the pages in which Mrs. Yatman's
name figured was enough, and more than enough, to prove the truth of
every word that I had spoken.

There, in one book, was the husband's account, which Mr. Yatman had
settled. And there, in the other, was the private account, crossed off
also; the date of settlement being the very day after the loss of the
cash-box. This said private account am