I must confess I was a little disappointed--although I could see I was likely to be well paid for my work--in being set at such a very commonplace job as this. After I had traced Lady Brightley's jewels (the reader does not remember this, I daresay, as it was kept very quiet, but I got praised for my management of the case), I thought I should have been selected for the most important work; and when Inspector Maffery brought Mr Byrle in, I really hoped it was about the great Bank-paper robbery. The reader is quite aware, I have no doubt, that Bank of England notes are printed on paper specially made for the purpose, and that no other paper has three rough edges, the only clean-cut edge being where the two notes have been separated--and this is one of the great tests of a genuine note. It will be recollected too, how a great quantity of this paper was stolen from the mills at Alverstoke, and the Bank was in a terrible state about it, because as for engraving and all that handicraft sort of work--why, bless me! there's men by the dozen in England and on the continent too--_I_ know some of them--who could print off a note with all the little touches on which the examiners rely, as perfectly imitated as if they had worked for the Bank for years. So when the gang got hold of the genuine _paper_, it was a serious matter. They took the principal thief, however, and got the paper back. A desperate service it was too, as B----, the chief man in the affair, was one of the most resolute and desperate roughs in London; and the officers that took him ran great risk, and deserved great praise.