The only one whom I found to be unusually flush of money was a man named Pat Corkling, better known as “Pauley.” Pauley was more a beggar and tramp than a thief, and had got his nickname by evading hard labour during a sentence for vagrancy by pretending that he had a “pauley,” or paralysed, right hand. Pauley, then, was spending money freely, and yet always too drunk to go out begging. I therefore removed him to the Central, and had him searched. We found more money on him than he could account for, but none of it could be identified, and Peggy Reid, on being shown Pauley, declared most positively that he was not the man. Pauley was therefore released, and went away triumphant, with the money in his pocket, to resume his drinking and gorging. At this stage of the affair there occurred a most singular and unaccountable event. Benjie Blunt was set at liberty, having duly served his term of seven days, and that very night the policeman Bain, on the beat past Dr Temple’s cottage, was suddenly attacked in a ferocious manner by a man who ran off the moment the assault was made. Since the discovery of the robbery Bain had been ordered, with Dr Temple’s permission, to enter the garden by the gate during the night, and make the circuit of the cottage to see that all was secure. He had done so on that occasion, and was scarcely out of the garden when a powerful hand drove the hat over his eyes, while a powerful foot administered a vicious kick to the small of his back. While he was dropping to the ground in agony a voice growled out something to the effect that he was to “take that you thief!” Bain managed to spring his rattle; but when he scrambled to his feet again he found himself alone, the nimble assailant having flown like the wind. No arrest was made, though Bain had to get a substitute for the rest of the night, and go home to bed. Next day, as if to add to the complications, a note was handed into the Office addressed to me, with twopence of deficient postage to pay, and which ran thus— “A blake Sheep. yul finde the rober of mr temples is thee Peg on the bete. serche him an his howse an yul see. giv him 10 yers the vilin.” The most of this precious epistle was written in a species of half-text, which did not seem altogether unfamiliar to me. So impressed was I with the idea that I went over to the prison and had a look at the copy-books of most of those in the school or who had been in it lately. I did not come on any resembling it, and it was not till Benjie Blunt came up to me on the street a few days later that the possible connection between him and the curious writing flashed upon my mind. “Now, I remember—Benjie used to write a hand something like that,” was my thought when he addressed me, and I fully expected that Benjie’s first words to me would have a reference to the policeman Bain, a most sterling and tried man, in whom we had implicit confidence.