It mattered nothing whether he gave Dagworthy the money in a note or in change, and, on being told the story, his employer might even feel disposed to pay for the hat.

He _would_ pay for the hat! By the time the cab drew up, Hood had convinced himself of this.

He was in better spirits than he had been for many a day.
'Can you change me a ten-pound note ?' were his first words to the hatter.

'If you can't, I must go elsewhere; I have nothing smaller.' The salesman hesitated.
'You want a silk hat ?' 'Yes, but not an expensive one.' A pen was brought, and Hood was requested to endorse the note.

What security--under the circumstances--such a proceeding could give, the hatter best knew; he appeared satisfied, and counted out his sovereigns.
Hood paid the cabman, and walked off briskly towards the office of Legge Brothers.
He stopped in the middle of the pavement as if a shot had struck him.
Supposing Dagworthy had no recollection of a ten-pound note having been lost, nor of any note having been lost; and supposing it occurred to him that he, Hood, had in reality found a larger sum, had invented the story of the lost hat, and was returning a portion only of his discovery, to gain the credit of honesty?
Such an idea could only possess the brain of a man whose life had been a struggle amid the chicaneries and despicabilities of commerce; who knew that a man's word was never trusted where there could enter the slightest suspicion of an advantage to himself in lying; whose daily terror had been lest some error, some luckless chance, should put him within the nets of criminality.