't people been sent to prison for less, Joe?"

"Foolish people have. Not people who are well advised and under good
management. Mind you, this business is under my direction. I am boss."

She made no reply, but took her candle and went off to bed.

In the dead of night she awakened her husband.

"Joe," she said, "is it true that you know another girl who would do
this for you?"

"More than one, Lotty," he replied, this man of resource, although he
was only half awake. "More than one. A great many more. Half-a-dozen,
I know, at least."

She was silent. Half an hour afterward she woke him up again.

"Joe," she said, "I've made up my mind. You sha'n't say that I refused
to do for you what any other girl in the world would have done."

As a tempter it will be seen that Joe was unsurpassed.

It was now a week since he had received, carefully wrapped in wool,
and deposited in a wooden box dispatched by post, a key, newly made.
It was, also, very nearly a week since he had used that key. It was
used during Mr. Emblem's hour for tea, while James waited and watched
outside in an agony of terror. But Joe did not find what he wanted.
There were in the safe one or two ledgers, a banker's book, a
check-book, and a small quantity of money. But there were not any
records at all of monies invested. There were no railway certificates,
waterwork shares, transfers, or notes of stock, mortgages, loans, or
anything at all. The only thing that he saw was a roll of papers tied
up with red tape. On the roll was written: "For Iris. To be given to
her on her twenty-first birthday."

"What the deuce is this, I wonder?" Joe took this out and looked at it
suspiciously. "Can he be going to give her all his money before he
dies? Is he going to make her inherit it at once?" The thought was so
exasperating that he slipped the roll into his pocket. "At all
events," he said, "she sha'n't have them until I have read them first.
I dare say they won't be missed for a day or two."

He calculated that he could read and master the contents that night,
and put back the papers in the safe in the morning while James was
opening the shop.

"There's nothing, James," he whispered as he went out, the safe being
locked again. "There is nothing at all. Look here, my lad, you must
try another way of finding out where the money is."

"I wish I was sure that he hasn't carried off something in his
pocket," James murmured.

Joe spent the whole evening alone