n the
press in which she stored them was at times quite marvellous. Yet that
press never quite filled up, owing to the fact that there was an
incurable leak in it--a sort of secret channel--through which the
products of her toil flowed out nearly as fast as she poured them in.

This leak in the worsted press, strange to say, increased wonderfully
just after the wreck described in a previous chapter, and the rivulet to
which it gave rise flowed in the direction of the back-door of the
house, emptying itself into a reservoir which always took the form of a
little elderly lady, with a plain but intensely lovable countenance, who
had been, perhaps still was, governess in a family in a neighbouring
town where Mrs Leather had spent some of her "better days." Her name
was Molloy.

Like a burglar Miss Molloy came in a stealthy manner at irregular
intervals to the back-door of the house, and swept the press of its
contents, made them up into a bundle of enormous size, and carried them
off on the shoulders of an appropriately disreputable blackguard boy--as
Shank called him--whom she retained for the purpose. Unlike a burglar,
however, Miss Molloy did not "bolt with the swag," but honestly paid for
everything, from the hugest pair of gentlemen's fishing socks to the
smallest pair of children's cuffs.

What Miss Molloy did with this perennial flow of woollen work, whom she
came from, where she went to, who discovered her, and why she did it,
were subjects of inquiry which baffled investigation, and always
simmered in the minds of Shank and May, though the mind of Mrs Leather
herself seemed to be little if at all exercised by it. At all events
she was uncommunicative on the point, and her children's curiosity was
never gratified, for the mother was obdurate, and, torture being illegal
at that time in England, they had no means of compelling disclosure. It
was sometimes hinted by Shank that their little dog Scraggy--
appropriately named!--knew more than he chose to tell about the subject,
for he was generally present at the half-secret interviews, and always
closed the scene with a sham but furious assault on the ever
contemptuous blackguard boy. But Scraggy was faithful to his trust, and
revealed nothing.

"I can't tell you how glad I am, Mrs Leather, about Shank's good
fortune," said Charlie, with a gentle shake of the hand, which Mr
Crossley would have appreciated. Like the Nasmyth steam-hammer, which
flattens a ton o