“You might have risked it with that one,” I said at last, handing it back. “Who offered it?” “Ah, that’s just it,” said the quick-witted boy; “even a good note isn’t quite safe from him; it was Peter Hart. You’ll know _him_ I daresay?” “Oh, indeed!” I cried with a start, and a thrill of satisfaction. “He offered this to be changed, did he? Then you needn’t bother going any further with it. I particularly want to see Peter.” The pot-boy was quite accustomed to such events, and did not seem surprised. We entered the shop together, and the boy conducted me to the box in which sat Peter. I had in my hand the £5 note. Peter had in his a glass of brandy, which he was in the act of raising with manifest gusto to his lips. He was transfixed in the act, more by anger, it seemed to me, than fear. “This is yours, isn’t it?” I said pleasantly, whereupon he scowled most malignantly. My “bairns” take pleasantry very badly from me. “Yes, it’s mine,” he said with an oath at me, which, being quite undeserved, need not be put down. “What do you want with it? It’s good enough, isn’t it?” “I believe so. Where did you get it?” “What’s that to you?” was the bullying reply. I folded up the note and put it into my pocket, and then produced my handcuffs. “Everything in the world,” I replied. “You must either answer that to me or put on these before answering it to the Fiscal.” Slightly disconcerted, but still defiant, he thought for a moment, and then said— “Well, I got it from a gentleman—a friend of mine I was a-calling on this morning.” “His name?” “Mr Bannister,” he sullenly responded, after another pause. “I believe you!” I returned with marked scepticism. “You had better say no more, for you’ll have to go with me.” Peter lost his temper, and said he would see me very much altered first, but he didn’t. He was foolish enough to resist, so I got another man, and after much kicking and struggling on Peter’s part we landed him at the Central Office. This resistance on Peter’s part seemed so utterly unlike him—his usual conduct being cheerful and polite to an irritating degree—that I rashly considered that for once I had caught him napping, and that by the merest accident.