You have seen that Athelstan on his return made haste to find out the
commissionaire who had presented the forged cheque. Happily, the man
remembered not only the circumstance itself but also his employer on
that occasion. A generosity far above what is commonly found among those
who employ the services of that corps endeared and preserved the memory
of the day. He had received, in fact, half a sovereign for an
eighteenpenny job; and the commissionaire is not like the cabby, to whom
such windfalls are common. Not at all. With the former we observe the
letter of the law.
After eight years this man's memory was rewarded. This thrice blessed
job produced yet more golden fruit. Heard one ever of a more prolific
job?
After breakfast, Athelstan was informed that a commissionaire desired to
speak with him. It was his one-armed friend.
'Beg your pardon, sir,' he said, saluting after the military
manner--'you said I was to come and tell you, first thing, if I found
your man for you.'
'Certainly. I told you also that I would give you a five-pound reward
for finding my man, as you call him. Well--I will be as good as my word
if you have found him.'
'I saw him yesterday. The very same old gentleman that sent me to the
Bank that day. He's older, and he doesn't look so jolly, and he walks
slower; but I knew him at once.'
'Oh! are you quite sure? Because a resemblance, you know----'
'Well, sir, I can swear to him. I remember him as well as I remember
anybody. He sat in the chair, and he laughed, and he said: "You've been
quick over the job, my man. There's something extra, because you might
have dropped the money down a grating, or run away with it, or
something," he says. "Here's half a sovereign for you, my man," says he;
"and I daresay you can do with it." "I can so, sir," I says, "and with
as many more like them as I can pick up." Then he laughed, and I
laughed, and we both laughed.--And that's the same man that I saw
yesterday evening.'
'Oh! this is very curious. Are you quite sure?'
'I'd swear to him anywhere. A man can't say fairer.'
'No--as you say--a man can hardly say fairer, can he? Now, then, when
did you see him?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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