tle way within this mark the trace of a very recent tying. Some of
the letters had been extracted, and the tape had been tied anew.

I had no doubt that this had been done while my negotiation with Mr.
Goodge had been pending. What was I to do? Refuse the letters, and
demand to have my principal's money returned to me? I knew my friend
well enough to know that such a proceeding would be about as useless as
it would be to request the ocean to restore a cup of water that had
been poured into it. The letters he had given me might or might not
afford some slight link in the chain I was trying to put together; and
the letters withheld from me might be more or less valuable than those
given to me. In any case the transaction was altogether a speculative
one; and George Sheldon's money was hazarded as completely as if it had
been put upon an outsider for the Derby.

Before bidding him a polite farewell, I was determined to make Mr.
Goodge thoroughly aware that he had not taken me in.

"You said there were more than forty letters," I told him; "I remember
the phrase 'forty-odd,' which is a colloquialism one would scarcely
look for in Tillotson or in John Wesley, who cherished a prejudice in
favour of scholarship which does not distinguish all his followers. You
said there were forty-odd letters, and you have removed some of them
from the packet. I am quite aware that I have no legal remedy against
you, as our contract was a verbal one, made without witnesses; so I
must be content with what I get; but I do not wish you to flatter
yourself with the notion that you have hoodwinked a lawyer's clerk. You
are not clever enough to do that, Mr. Goodge, though you are knave
enough to cheat every attorney in the Law List."

"Young man, are you aware----?"

"As I have suffered by the absence of any witness to our negotiation, I
may as well profit by the absence of any witness to our interview. You
are a cheat and a trickster, Mr. Goodge, and I have the honour to wish
you good afternoon!" "Go forth, young man!" cried the infuriated Jonah
whose fat round face became beet-root colour with rage, and who
involuntarily extended his hand to the poker--for the purpose of
defence and not defiance, I believe. "Go forth, young man! I say unto
you, as Abimelech said unto Jedediah, go forth."

I am not quite clear as to the two scriptural proper names with which
the Rev. Jonah embellished his discourse on this occasion; but I know
that sort of m