shuts with a very loud snap."

"So it does," said the General, putting it to the test. "And now, tell
me, when was this? You don't recollect?"

"Oh yes, I do, Sir Orkus. It was nex' day after the cricket match,
because I was cleaning my best shoes, as I wore at the match, when he
come."

"Very good, Polly," said the General, rubbing his hands.

"Excellent!" said my uncle; "but that does not prove the man stole it."

"Why, he must have crept along the ditch behind the tent," I cried
involuntarily, "and pushed his arm through. Yes, I know," I said,
getting more excited, as my mother's arm tightened about me. "I saw him
that evening with his face all stung by nettles."

"That ditch is full of nettles," cried Mr Hasnip.

"Good! good!" cried the General.

"But how came the watch hidden in that bin?" cried my uncle sternly.

"I know," said Cook. "Why, of course, he was afraid to keep it; and
it's just like him."

"I do not follow you," said my uncle.

"Why, when he was at work in our garden, my smelling-bottle o' salts was
stolen, and when I made a fuss about it, some one found it hid away
behind the scullery door, where he put it."

"Then you think this man hid it there?" said my uncle.

"I'm sure of it, sir. Why, didn't I catch him one morning early coming
out of the stable, and, `What are you doing there?' I says. `Looking
for the top of my hoe,' he says, `as I left here when I was at work.
Ain't seen it, have you?' he says. `No,' I says, `but I see the
gardener just now coming to work, and I'll call him.' `Never mind,
mum,' he says, and he went off, and nobody's seen him about here since.
Oh, look there! Poor dear!"

I just saved my mother from falling, and she was helped into a chair,
clinging to my hand, though, all the time, as she burst into a
hysterical fit of sobbing. But she calmed down after a few minutes, and
the gentlemen, who had been talking in a low voice earnestly together,
now resumed their places, the Doctor clearing his voice loudly.

"Burr junior," he said in his most magisterial tones, and then he
stopped short, coughed again, blew his nose, and was silent.

"Forgive me, gentlemen," he said at last. "This has been a great
trouble to me--I feel moved--I have painfully hurt the feelings of a
dear, sweet lady, to whom I humbly apologise, and I--I make no
favourites here, but I have wrongfully suspected--but on very strong
evidence, gentlemen," he said, with an appealing l