“I don’t quite know what you mean,” said James Dodson, “you have such an odd way of expressing yourself. But I am going to give you my advice in plain English. Mum is the word. I defy anything to be proved against you if you keep your mouth shut. If you do I won’t deny that James Dodson may lose his billet. But in any case he has it about him to get another; while, as I say, if you come to lose yours you are done for altogether. No, Luney, whatever you do you must not appear in this. The consequences may be so much more than you know; and you are not a chap who can stand up against them. If you will give the money to me I will restore it; but I shall use my own judgment as to how and when to put it back. You see I have already half persuaded Octavius that he has left the money somewhere else; that he has mislaid it, or that he has never had it. You see he is such an absent-minded sort of blighter, that by a bit of firm and judicious handling he might be persuaded that the money never existed. And I will do him this credit, my son; he would far rather it never had existed than that a thing like this should have happened in the house of Crumpett and Hawker.” The immediate result of this curious and unlooked-for intervention was that the unhappy young man, although declining to incriminate his mentor by handing the money over to him to be restored at his discretion, also refrained, for the time being, from replacing it himself, because such a course, in Jimmy Dodson’s opinion, would tell heavily against himself. “You see I’ve told such lies to Octavius,” said Jimmy Dodson, “that he might easily come to believe that the money was not there at all. But if it returns to the exact spot where he thinks he left it, he will naturally come to suspect me as having some sort of a hand in it, and he will know then--like the d----d old fool that he is--that I have been trying to argue him clean out of his own reason.” “T-the p-power will be furnished to me to make reparation,” the young man muttered, “t-the p-power will be furnished to me to confess my crime.” “There must be none of that talk, my son,” said his mentor sternly. “This is not a case for high falutin’! It will not help at all. Either the money was there or it was not there. _I_ believe it was not there; Octavius is going to believe so too. You see a chap like Octavius doesn’t care a bit about the brass. It is the principle he cares about; and he is such a fanatic in some things, if he found you out there is no saying to what lengths he might go.” The frail barque, chartless, aimless in mid ocean, was obedient to the will of the wind. William Jordan crept again down the stairs, his resolution unfulfilled. The pieces of gold were still in his pocket; his crime was still unconfessed.