The manager smiled as he wrote out the document, while Mr Gemp, who seemed as much relieved as if he had been eased of an aching tooth, rose to make a closer inspection of the loaded pistols and the bell-mouthed brass blunderbuss, all of which he tapped gently in turn with the hook of his stick. "There you are, Mr Gemp," said the manager smiling. "Now you can go home and feel at rest, for your deeds and warrants will be secure." "Yes, sir, to be sure; that's the way," said the old man, hastily reading the memorandum, and then placing it in a very old leather pocket-book; "but if you wouldn't mind, sir, Mr Hallam, sir, I should like to see you lock them all in yonder." "Well, then, you shall," said the manager good-humouredly and taking up the packets he tied them together with some green ferret, swung open the heavy door, which creaked upon its pivots, stepped inside, turned a key with a rattle, and opened a large iron chest, into which he threw the deeds, shut the lid with a clang, locked it ostentatiously, took out the key, backed out, and then closed and locked the great door of the safe. "There, Mr Gemp; I think you'll find they are secure now." "Safe! safe as the bank!" said the old man with an admiring smile as, with a sigh of relief, he picked up his old rough beaver hat from the floor, stuck it on rather sidewise, and with a short "good-morning," stamped out, tapping the floor as he went. "Good-morning, Mr Thickens, sir," he said, pausing at the outer door to look back over his shoulder at the clerk. "I've done my bit o' business with the manager. It's all right." "Good-morning, Mr Gemp," said Thickens quietly; and then to himself, as the tap of the stick was heard going down the street, "An important old idiot!" Several little pieces of business were transacted, and then, according to routine, the manager came behind the counter to relieve his lieutenant, who put on his hat and went to his dinner. During his absence the manager took his place at his subordinate's desk, and was very busy making a few calculations, after divers references to a copy of yesterday's _Times_, which came regularly by coach. These calculations made him thoughtful, and he was in the middle of one when his face changed, and turned of a strange waxen hue, but he recovered himself directly. "Might have expected it," he said softly; and he went on writing as some one entered the bank. The visitor was a thin, dejected-looking youth of about two-and-twenty, shabbily dressed in clothes that did not fit him. His face was of a sickly pallor, as if he had just risen from an invalid couch, an idea strengthened by the extremely shortly-cut hair, whose deficiency was made the more manifest by his wearing a hat a full size too large. This was drawn down closely over his forehead, his pressed-out ears acting as brackets to keep it from going lower still.