“Why, if I’d ’ave knowed it was Jeanes for certain, I’d ’ave ’elped yer--for a consideration, of course. I only took yer into the shop because I meant to find out who yer _was_ hafter. Jeanes ain’t nothink to me; but there is some of my pals as I wouldn’t have no ’arm come to, not for a pot o’ money. And I knew if I ’ad yer there I could find out who it was yer wanted, and give ’im the tip if it was a pal. Why, I’ve been a-playin’ with yer all this time--a-playing hoff first one name and then another to see if it was your bloke. Then when I began to suspect it _was_ Jeanes, I planned the little game I played yer ter-day--an’ _didn’t_ yer tumble prettily! Ha, ha, ha, ha!” and off the Professor went again into a paroxysm of laughter at my expense. It suited my purpose to humour him, so I joined good-humouredly in the laugh against myself; but as a matter of fact I had not been quite such a “pigeon” as the Professor supposed. Up to a certain point the scoring had been in my favour, and not in his, for I had succeeded, not only in intercepting an important letter which had been sent to his care, but also in returning that letter--after I had made myself acquainted with its contents--to the place whence I took it, so that it might reach the hand of the person to whom it was addressed. But I knew very well that, should the Professor’s suspicions be once aroused--as must have been the case after he detected me in the act of examining the letters--I should not only never again be allowed to go within the reach of the rack where he kept them, but should in all probability be refused admission to his shop. Hence I had no choice but to adopt the somewhat daring course of openly offering him a bribe to take me into his service. If he really were Mullen’s confederate he would already have had cause to suspect my motives, but if, on the other hand, Mullen and the Professor had no other connection than that the former was having his letters addressed to the latter’s shop, it was quite within the bounds of possibility that the worthy Professor would, for a consideration, be prepared to tell me all he knew about the customer in question. That the object of the leading questions he had from time to time put to me was to discover whom I was in search of, I had been well aware, although I freely admit that I had been, as I have said, “let through” in regard to the man who had called for Jeanes’s letter. When the Professor had had his laugh out I asked him quietly if he knew that the letter for Jeanes was gone. “Do I know it’s gone, yer bally fool?” he said. “Why, of course I do. Wasn’t it me came and called yer for it just now when I had such a bad korf; and didn’t yer say there wasn’t any letter?” “Yes, yes,” I said, looking rather foolish; “of course I know that you came and asked for a letter, and that I told you there wasn’t one, but I didn’t know that you knew that the letter was really gone.”