t will wait, we can frighten it out of Jones."

"If I know anything of human nature," said Robinson, "Brisket will
not wait."

"He would, if you hadn't spoke to him that way. He'd say he wouldn't,
and go away, and Maryanne would blow up; but I should have worked the
money out of Jones at last, and then Brisket would have waited."

When Mr. Brown had made this disclosure, whispering all the time as
he leaned his head and shoulder on Robinson's upright desk, they both
remained silent for a while. "We have been wrong," he had said; "I
know we have." And Robinson, as he heard the words, perceived that
from the beginning to the end he had been a victim. No wonder that
the business should not have answered, when such confessions as these
were wrung from the senior partner! But the fact alleged by Mr. Brown
in his own excuse was allowed its due weight by Robinson, even at
that moment. Mr. Brown had possessed money,--money which might have
made his old age comfortable and respectable in obscurity. It was not
surprising that he should be anxious to keep in his own hand some
small remnant of his own property. But as for Jones! What excuse
could be made for Jones! Jones had been a thief; and worse than
ordinary thieves, for his thefts were committed on his own friends.

"And he has got the money," said Robinson.

"Oh, yes!" said Mr. Brown, "there's no doubt in life about that."

"Then, by the heaven above us, he shall refund it to the firm from
which he has stolen it," shouted Robinson, striking the desk with his
fist as he did so.

"Whish, George, whish; Brisket will hear you."

"Who cares? I have been robbed on every side till I care for nothing!
What is Brisket to me, or what is your daughter? What is anything?"

"But, George--"

"Is there no honesty left in the world, Mr. Brown? That there is no
love I had already learned. Ah me, what an age is this in which we
live! Deceit, deceit, deceit;--it is all deceit!"

"The heart of a man is very deceitful," said Mr. Brown. "And a
woman's especially."

"Delilah would have been a true wife now-a-days. But never mind. That
man is still there, and he must be answered. I have no hundred pounds
to give him."

"No, George; no; we're sure of that."

"When this business is broken up, as broken up it soon will be--"

"Oh, George, don't say so."

"Ay, but it will. Then I shall walk out from Magenta House with empty
pockets and with clean hands."

"But think of me, George.