his professional duties, and
still suffered much from internal injuries. Mr Sharp expressed
sympathy with him; said that the case, as he put it, was indeed a hard
one, and begged of him to put his statement of it down on paper. The
auctioneer complied, and thought Mr Sharp a rather benignant railway
official. When he had signed his name to the paper, his visitor took it
up and said, "Now, Mr Blank, this is all lies from beginning to end. I
have traced your history step by step, down to the present time, visited
all the places you have been to, conversed with the waiters of the
hotels where you put up, have heard you to-day go through as good a
day's work as any strong man could desire to do, and have seen you
finish up, with a stiff glass of whisky toddy, which I am very sorry to
have interrupted. Now, sir, this is very like an effort to obtain money
under false pretences, and, if you don't know what that leads to, you
are in a very fair way to find out. The Company which I have the honour
to represent, however, is generous. We know that you were in the
Langrye accident, for I saw you there, and in consideration of the
injury to your nerves and the damage to your proboscis, we are willing
to give you a five-pound note as a sort of sticking-plaster at once to
your nose and your feelings. If you accept that, good; if not you shall
take the consequences of _this_!" The superintendent here held up the
written statement playfully, and placed it in his pocket-book. The
auctioneer was a wise, if not an honest, man. He thankfully accepted
the five pounds, and invited Mr Sharp to join him in a tumbler, which,
however, the superintendent politely declined.

But this was a small matter compared with another case which Mr Sharp
had just been engaged investigating. It was as follows:--

One afternoon a slight accident occurred on the line by which several
passengers received trifling injuries. At the time only two people made
claim for compensation, one for a few shillings, the other for a few
pounds. These cases were at once investigated and settled, and it was
thought that there the matter ended. Six months afterwards, however,
the company received a letter from the solicitors of a gentleman whose
hat it was said, had been driven down on the bridge of his nose, and had
abraded the skin; the slight wound had turned into an ulcer, which
ultimately assumed the form of permanent cancer. In consequence of this
the gent