"And mark you this," he added to Hanborough, with whom the colloquy was taking place, "some past matters will come out that Preen wants kept in. He'll wish he had paid me, then." Now, old Paul overheard this, for the door was partly open. Rugged in look, and in manner too when he chose to be, he was not rugged at heart. He was saying to himself that if this money had really been lost out of his office, stolen possibly by one of his clerks, he might replace it from his own pocket, to ward off further damage to Preen. Preen had not at present a second ten-pound note to give, could not find one anyway; Preen wished he could. Ten pounds would not affect the lawyer's pocket at all: and his resolution was taken. Ringing his bell, which was answered by Batley, he bade him show Derrick to his room. The man came in with a subdued face. He supposed he had been overheard, and he did not care to offend Mr. Paul. "I cannot have you coming here to disturb my clerks, Derrick," said the lawyer, with authority. "If you write out a receipt, I will pay you." "And sure enough that's all I want, sir," returned Derrick, who was Irish. "But I can't let the thing go on longer--and it's Preen I'd like to disturb, Lawyer Paul, not you." "Sit down yonder and write the receipt," said the lawyer, shortly. "You know how to word it." So Derrick wrote the receipt and went off with the ten pounds. And Gervais Preen said a few words of real thanks to Mr. Paul in a low tone, when he heard of it. On Tuesday morning, the thirteenth of July, exactly four weeks to the day since the bank-note left Mr. Preen's hands, he had news of it. The Old Bank at Worcester wrote to him to say that the missing note had been paid in the previous day, Monday, by a well-known firm of linen-drapers in High Street. Upon which the bank made inquiry of this firm as to whence they received the note, and the answer, readily given, was that they had had it from a neighbour opposite--the silversmith. The silversmith, questioned in his turn, replied with equal readiness that it had been given him in payment of a purchase by young Mr. Todhetley. Preen, hardly believing his eyes, went off with all speed to Islip, and laid the letter before Lawyer Paul. "What does it all mean?" he asked. "How can young Todhetley have had the note in his possession? I am going on to Crabb Cot to show the Squire the letter." "Stop, stop," said the far-seeing lawyer, "it won't do to take this letter to Todhetley. Let us consider, first of all, how we stand. There must be some mistake. The bank and the silversmith have muddled matters between them; they may have put young Todhetley's name into it through seeing his father's on the bank-note. I will write at once to Worcester and get it privately inquired into. You had better leave it altogether in my hands, Preen, for the present." A proposal Preen was glad to agree to.