And yet he had an excellent opportunity to have kept back the package, and the temptation would indeed have been a dangerous one to older and more strongly fortified persons than he was. I determined, therefore, to put him to the test of a direct charge of having purloined the package, which I lost no time in doing, intimating that a confession and restoration of the money was his first duty. But he met the charge fearlessly, and firmly asserted his innocence as to the important remittance in question. The faithful monitor within, however, would not let him rest there. Believing, probably, that I knew more about other transactions of his than the one I had accused him of, he addressed me as follows:-- "I mailed that bank package, and know that it left our office. What could I have done with so much money, if I had been bad enough to have taken it? And I _was_ just bad enough! I am willing to tell you all I have done, and will very gladly restore the ill-gotten funds, for they have made me miserable." I will omit the details of this unexpected confession, but the first case owned was the $40 letter that had been handed to the through baggage-master, to be crammed into the locked mail-pouch, the failure of which letter, as has been already shown, had given so much force to suspicions against him! By way of corroborating this part of his admissions, at my request, he described the address of the letter, the kind of money it contained, and to complete the identity, he mentioned that it came there loose in the mail-bag. This discovery relieved the baggage-man amazingly, and at the same time aided me in deciding at what point the heavy losses had occurred; for if the large package started from this office, and was not disturbed on the cars, it must have been stolen in the New York or Philadelphia office, where it was destined. Another fact transpired about this time, which assisted still further in locating these alarming robberies. Among them was one of a letter mailed by the cashier of a bank in Vermont, for an office in one of the Western States, and enclosing a quantity of the notes of that bank. The bills had peculiar marks upon them. They all found their way back to the bank through the usual channel of redemption, within a week of the time they were mailed; hence, of course, the letter could not have gone beyond New York. Besides, it was sent to that office for distribution, and the post bill was on file there, and described this identical letter, by its unusual rate, and as being pre-paid by stamps. In all the other cases, the post bills were not to be found, either in New York or other distant post offices, and they must have been taken with the packages themselves.