“A plant! a plant, I believe!” was my mental exclamation, but I was too busy for some hours to give the matter further attention. Then I began my work. I found that Bess had followed me from the Office down the close in which I had addressed her about the shawl, and it now recurred to me that she and Micky were old acquaintances, and very likely to work into each other’s hands. Then she had volunteered the information about Corny, without my asking for it, and I knew her so well that I had not for a moment believed it until Corny was taken with the goods in his possession. I did not know very well how to act, but there was no time for delay, and I began by pouncing upon Bess. She was so frightened that she let out a word or two more than she intended, and in a short time I was at Micky’s house inquiring for him. Micky was drunk—speechlessly drunk—to which state he had reduced himself, I think, in joy over the success of his scheme; but the capture of the shebeener was a trifle to the one which accompanied it. In the same room with Micky, and not much more sober, was a swell-mobsman, who had been lodging there for some time. He had come down for the purpose of attending the races, and was a smart man altogether. He did not get to the races that year, for the old street porter easily identified him out of a dozen men as the man who employed him to carry the bundle to the New Town. His ivory-headed umbrella and his cigar case were also identified as promptly—a clear proof that a rogue should not indulge in easily recognisable finery. Before the day of the trial we had also discovered a person living in the stair in Clerk Street who had seen the smart man loitering in the stair with the bundle and handing it over to Corny, and that, with a stolen shawl found on the back of Micky’s wife, served to successfully rivet the fetters on both. The actual perpetrator of the robbery had really been the swell-mobsman, Micky having had no hand in it but the resetting of some of the things; but some of the evidence appeared to implicate him, and he was found guilty, and sentenced to the same term as his companion in the dock—seven years’ penal. Corny, of course, had been released as soon as we got Bess to make a clean breast of it, and he appeared as a witness at the trial, and got some handsome commendations from the presiding judge. His case attracted some attention, and a gentleman willing to help the old porter came to me for advice in the matter, to make sure that the case was a deserving one. The result was that Corny’s lot was made more easy; and when his son was released, they were all helped out of the country by the same generous hand, Pat proving one of the exceptions to the rule, “Once a thief, always a thief.” A BIT OF TOBACCO PIPE.