lobby must be shortly described.  First there was a door with a glass window, but the window had dark blue gauze fixed to it, so that nobody could see into the lobby from the office; but a person in the lobby, by putting his eye close to the gauze, could see into the office in a filmy sort of way.  This door opened on a lavatory, and there were also pegs on which the clerks hung their overcoats.  Then there was a swing-door leading direct to the street, and sideways into a small room indispensable to every office.

Monckton entered this lobby, and inserted the numbered notes into young Clifford’s coat, and the false keys into his bag.  Then he whipped back hastily into the office, with his craven face full of fiendish triumph.

He started for the detective.  But it was bitter cold, and he returned to the lobby for his own overcoat.  As he opened the lobby door the swing-door moved, or he thought so; he darted to it and opened it, but saw nobody, Hope having whipped behind the open door of the little room.  Monckton then put on his overcoat, and went for the detective.

He met Clifford at the door, and wore an insolent grin of defiance, for which, if they had not passed each other rapidly, he would very likely have been knocked down.  As it was, Walter Clifford entered the office flushed with wrath, and eager to leave behind him the mortifications and humiliations he had endured.

He went to his own little desk and tore up Lucy Mailer’s letters, and his heart turned toward home.  He went into the lobby, and, feeling hot, which was no wonder, bundled his office overcoat and his brush and comb into his bag.  He returned to the office for his penknife, and was going out all in a hurry, when Mr. Bartley met him.

Bartley looked rather stern, and said, “A word with you, sir.”

“Certainly, sir,” said the young man, stiffly.

Mr. Bartley sat down at his table and fixed his eyes upon the young man with a very peculiar look.

“You seem in a very great hurry to go.”

“Well, I am.”

“You have not even demanded your salary up to date.”

“Excuse the oversight; I was not made for business, you know.”

“There is something more to settle besides your salary.”

“Premium for good conduct?”

“No, sir.  Mr. Bolton, you will find this no jesting matter.  There are defalcations in the accounts, sir.”

The young man turned serious at once.  “I am sorry to hear that, sir,” said he, with proper feeling.

Bartley eyed him still more severely.  “And even cash abstracted.”

“Good heavens!” said the young man, answering his eyes rather than his words.  “Why, surely you can’t suspect me?”

Bartley answered, sternly, “I know I have been robbed, and so I suspect everybody whose conduct is suspicious.”

This was too much for a Clifford to bear.  He turned on him like a lion.  “Your suspicions disgrace the trader who entertains them, not the gentleman they wrong.  You are too old for me to give you a thrashing, so I won’t stay here any longer to be insulted.”