"You'd neither of you be likely to deal in them, Mr. Todhetley. There's a mistake somewhere. That's what it is. Mr. Isaac would be too glad to get this note into his possession to pay it away again. No people are more severe against money-robberies than bankers." Salmon talked, and Tod talked; but they could not agree. The apprentice behind the counter on the drapery side listened with admiration, evidently not knowing which side to take. I spoke then, saying that the note did not appear to be the same as the one I had enclosed in the letter; and Tod looked as though he could have knocked me down for saying it. I had changed my clothes and had not Anna Whitney's letter with me. "Tod, it is of no use your taking it up in this way. If the thing is so, it _is_. And it can soon be proved. I say I don't think it is the same note, or the same numbers." "If I had taken down the numbers of a bank-note, I could remember what they were; so would any one but a muff, Johnny," said he, sarcastically. "I don't remember what they were. But I do seem to remember that they were not these." Tod flung out of the shop in a passion: to him it seemed impossible that anything could be wrong with a note had direct from the bank. As to its not being the same note, he scouted it utterly. Had it dropped through the envelope and changed itself _en route_ from Worcester? he sarcastically demanded--coming in again to ask it. Salmon was quietly going over the circumstances of the Tewkesbury robbery to me. About three weeks before, a butcher's shop was robbed in Tewkesbury--the till carried off in open day. It had gold and silver in it and two five-pound notes. The numbers of the notes happened to be known, and notice of them was circulated, to put people on their guard against taking them. "Look here, Mr. Ludlow," said Salmon, showing me the numbers of the stolen notes written down in his book, and comparing the one with the bank-note we had taken to him. "It's the same, you see. Reason's reason, sir." "But I don't see how it's practicable," cried Tod, coming round the least bit in the world, as he condescended to look himself at the numbers. "Well, sir, neither do I--the facts being as you state them," acknowledged Salmon. "But here's the proof to stagger us, you observe. It's in black and white." "There must be two notes with the same numbers," said Tod. Salmon smiled: great in his assumption of superior knowledge. "There never was yet, Mr. Todhetley." "Who numbers the notes, I wonder? I suppose mistakes are not impossible to those who do it, any more than to other people." "No fear of that, sir, with their system. The note has been changed in the post." "Nonsense!" retorted Tod.