The sweep and his wife raised their hands as if horrified at the accusation, and solemnly declared that M^cSweeny’s imagination had deceived him; that they had nothing to throw, and they would as soon attempt to fly in the air as to try to deceive such a world-renowned and keen-sighted detective as he. M^cSweeny, still suspicious, came out of the soot-bin and searched about for a little, but found nothing; and then, after a deal of snorting and swearing, went back to his work, and soon had all the loose soot out in the kitchen. There remained then only the sacks at the back to be removed, and M^cSweeny was diligently setting his brawny arms and shoulders to them when I descended the stair and stood before them. I stood transfixed with astonishment at the strange scene, till a familiar grin from the demon of darkness at work in the soot-bin made me look at him more closely, and then I faintly recognised my chum. “Good heavens! what does all this mean?” I exclaimed, after a hearty laugh at M^cSweeny’s solemn face and the eloquent burst of abuse which he heaped upon the sweep and his wife. “It means,” he responded, making a virtue of a necessity, “that I’m not afraid to do my duty properly, even though I do get a little black by it, and spoil a good suit of clothes into the bargain. Jamie, avick, I’ve found nothing, but we may take them both on suspicion, for a pair of bigger blackguards never walked the streets unhung.” It seemed to me that had the sweep been an innocent and honest man, he would have resented this language hotly. He did not. He was all smoothness and politeness still, and officiously offered to help me in any way. What I liked worse was to observe that he was also all cheerfulness. There was even a twinkle of gloating and delight in the corners of his demurely drawn eyes over M^cSweeny’s grinning and discomfiture, or possibly over the consciousness that he was perfectly safe. Now, I had never believed that we should find the missing articles in that sooty den, and had hinted as much to M^cSweeny. Supposing the sweep to have nerve and effrontery enough to commit such a robbery, he would have been an arrant fool to have kept the stolen trinkets about his house. After a look round the place myself, and a short conversation in an undertone with M^cSweeny, I decided that we might go, and trust to tracing the missing articles elsewhere. But there was the sweep’s kitchen in a dreadful state of confusion, with a great pile of soot filling the centre of the floor; it would never do to leave the poor man’s house in that state, and I promptly said so. “Oh, that’s naething, sir—I’ll put back the soot mysel’,” smoothly and graciously answered the sweep. “Dinna disturb yoursel’, sir; I’ll see ye up that stair, for it’s very dark and narrow. This way, sir; this way.”