“What do you mean?--they did not refuse to give it to you?” asked Mr. Grahame, hastily and sternly. “Why, no, not quite that, sir.” “Then where is it?” “That’s jest it--where is it, sir? That’s jest what I should like to know.” “What do you mean?” cried Mr. Grahame, springing to his feet with a countenance of alarm. “You do not mean to say it has been stolen?” “Stolen!” cried Chewkle, leaping up with a face suddenly of the hue of scarlet. “That would be too good a joke, too. Who’d prig such a thing as that, I’d like to know?” “Explain yourself, man! You are speaking in enigmas!” cried Mr. Grahame, excitedly. Mr. Chewkle drew from out of a dirty piece of light brown paper--which had been employed in the task of enclosing half-a-pound of “moist” sugar--the letter he received from the solicitor. Mr. Grahame snatched it from him, and tore it open. He read the contents twice, and then sat down and reflected for a minute. “There is nothing, Chewkle,” he said, more composedly, “that I perceive in this communication to occasion alarm: the deed will be sent here to day by one of the clerks.” “I hopes it may,” observed Chewkle, laconically. “In the meantime, my good friend,” said Grahame, assuming a bland tone, “I have been pondering over the situation, and I am afraid we have gone a little too far to pause now, or to retrace our steps.” “We,” echoed Chewkle, opening his eyes widely. “Yes,” continued Mr. Grahame; “if I stand in the position of a principal in the affair, you take the part of an accessory before the fact, and a very important one you are, too, inasmuch as you counselled the deed, and instructed me how to perform it, lending your assistance throughout.” Mr. Chewkle would have here interposed some very emphatic observations, but that Mr. Grahame checked him, and continued speaking. “It is not my intention,” he said, “or my wish that the conversation should assume its present tone. I would rather that it took a shape which, while it consulted my interest, gave liberal promise of rich advantages to you.” Chewkle pricked up his ears. “Last night, if you remember,” said Mr. Grahame, slowly fixing his eye firmly upon that of his ‘agent,’ “you threw out several suggestions calculated to afford me, in the distress of mind under which I was labouring, a very considerable degree of consolation. Do you remember this?” Chewkle caught hold of his dusty, shaggy whiskers at the roots, and drew them out to their full extent with the tips of his fingers and thumb several times, to appear the unconscious act of a man plunged in reflection. Presently he said-- “Ain’t altogether certain as I does.” Mr. Grahame now repeated the plan which he had the previous evening proposed to accomplish by the aid of Mr. Jukes and his companions, by which, in spite of all Wilton’s protestations and oaths to the contrary, the signature was to be sworn to as being _bona fide_ and genuine.