isely confirmed all his story.

"Can you? Come and show me, then.--Stay here a moment, captain," said
the squire, as he conducted the boy to the front office, closing the
door behind him.

Little Bobtail indicated the precise spot where the letter lay when he
had thrown it upon the desk. Captain Chinks was called in, and pointed
to exactly the same place. There was not a variation of two inches
between them.

"I can swear that the letter lay on the desk after Bobtail went out of
the office," said Captain Chinks, decidedly.

"I am willing to grant that Little Bobtail has told the truth, and that
he is entirely exculpated from the charge; for if either or both of you
have been lying, your testimony would have conflicted in some point, as
it does not now."

"That's handsome, squire," added the captain.

"By the way, when did you see Bobtail last, captain?" asked the lawyer.

"I haven't seen him since the day I went away."

"You may go, Bobtail," added the squire.

"I'm in no hurry, sir. Perhaps you will want to ask me some more
questions," replied the boy.

"If the letter was left on my desk, I ought to have found it there,"
continued the lawyer.

"That's so. But you don't always find things where you put them," said
Captain Chinks, sagely.

A long conversation about the missing letter followed; but no clew to it
was obtained. The ill-visaged man, who wished to save the Buckingham
Bank robbers from a long term in the state prison, thought it was very
hard that his friends should suffer because somebody had stolen the
letter, or the squire had lost it by his carelessness. But the lawyer
thought his correspondent was to blame for not sending a check or draft;
to which the ill-visaged replied that a check or draft would have been
lost in the same manner the money had been.

Finally Squire Gilfilian agreed to defend the bank robbers, and their
friend agreed to raise the money to pay him before the trial came on. He
did defend them; but even he was not smart enough to save them from a
long term in the state prison.

Little Bobtail was entirely satisfied with the result of the
examination, so far as he was personally concerned, though, as the
squire seemed to be very fair about it, he was sorry that he should lose
so large a sum of money. More than this, he had more respect than ever
before for Captain Chinks, who, he was quite sure, had told the truth in
this instance. He might have given him a world of troubl