e first, and then I rose step by
step. I have been with Shaw a matter of six years."

"And how long has Louisa Clay been there?"

"I can't exactly remember, but I should say a year and a half."

Sampson now rose to his feet.

"There we are," he said. "You are a good-looking chap, Jim; you are
taller than us London fellows, and you've got a pleasing way with you;
you were civil to Louisa before Alison came. Come now, the truth."

"Well, she talked to me now and then," answered the young fellow,
coloring again.

"Ah, I guess she did, and you talked to her; in fact, you kept company
with her, or as good."

"No, that I didn't."

"Well, she thought you did, or hoped you would; so it all comes to the
same. Then Alison arrived, and you gave Louisa up. Isn't that so?"

"I never thought about Louisa one way or the other, I assure you,
Sampson. Ally and I were friends from the first. I hadn't known her a
fortnight before I loved her more than all the rest of the world. I
have been courting her ever since. I never gave a thought to another
woman."

"Bless me! what an innocent young giant you are; but another woman gave
you a thought, my hearty, and of course she was jealous of Miss Reed,
and if she didn't want the money for reasons of her own, she was very
glad to put a spoke in her wheel."

"Oh, come now, it isn't right to charge a girl like that," said Hardy.

"Right or wrong, I believe I've hit the nail on the head. Anyhow,
that's the track for us to work. Where does this girl Clay live?"

"With her father and mother in Shoreditch. He's a pawnbroker, and by
no means badly off."

"You seem to have gone to their house."

"A few times on Sunday evenings. Louisa asked me."

"Have you gone lately?"

"Not to say very lately."

"Well, what do you say to you and me strolling round there this
evening?"

"This evening!" cried Jim. "Oh, come now," he added, "I haven't the
heart; that I haven't."

"You have no spunk in you. I thought you wanted to clear your girl."

"Oh, if you put it in that way, Sampson, of course I'll do anything;
but I can't see your meaning. I do want, God knows, to clear Alison,
but I don't wish to drag another girl into it."

"You shan't; that will be my business. After all, I see I must take
this thing up; you are not the fellow for it. The detective line, Jim,
means walking on eggs without breaking 'em. You'd smash every egg in
the farmyard. The detective line means