While the subject of the thefts was under discussion, Kit Nubbles, a lad in the employ of a Mr. Garland, passed through the office, on his way upstairs to the room of the Brasses' lodger, the single gentleman, who was an intimate friend of Kit's employer. The single gentleman having been confined to his room for some time by a slight illness, it had become Kit's daily custom to convey to him messages and notes from Mr. Garland, and not infrequently Sampson Brass would detain the lad in the office for a few words of pleasant conversation. Having discharged his errand, Kit came downstairs again, finding no one in the office except Mr. Brass, who, after greeting him affably, requested him to mind the office for one minute while he ran upstairs. Mr. Brass returned almost immediately, Mr. Swiveller came in too, at the same instant, likewise Miss Sally, and Kit, released, at once set off on a run towards home, eager to make up for lost time. As he was running, he was suddenly arrested and held in restraint, by no less a person than Sampson Brass himself, accompanied by Mr. Swiveller. A five-pound note was missing from the office. Kit had been alone there for some minutes. Who could have taken it but Kit? Pleased to have suspicion diverted from the Marchioness, but loath to help in so unpleasant an affair, Mr. Swiveller reluctantly assisted in bearing the captive back to the office, Kit protesting his innocence at every step. They searched him, and there under the lining of his hat was the missing bank-note! Still protesting his innocence, and completely stunned by the calamity which had come upon him, the lad was borne off to prison, where, after eleven weary days had dragged away, he was brought to trial. Richard Swiveller was called as a witness against Kit, and told his tale with reluctance, and an evident desire to make the best of it, for the lad's sake. His kind heart was also touched with pity for Kit's poor widowed mother, who sobbed out again and again, that she had never had cause to doubt her son's honesty, and she never would. When the trial was ended, and Kit found guilty, Richard bore the lad's fainting mother swiftly off in a coach he had ready for the purpose, and on the way comforted her in his own peculiar fashion, perpetrating the most astounding absurdities of quotation from song and poem that ever were heard. Reaching her home, he stayed till she was recovered; then returned to Bevis Marks, where Mr. Brass met him with the news that his services would be no longer required in the establishment.