How am I to get them within half an hour ?" "Good gracious! I don't know; the banks are all closed, but there is a man at Charing Cross who would perhaps change a cheque for me; there is a cheque-book at the office." "Then that's all right and settled.

Mr.Stoneham, there's been some juggling with the accounts in the office of the Board of Public Construction." "What! a defalcation ?" cried Stoneham eagerly.
"No; merely a shifting round." "Ah," said the editor, in a disappointed tone.
"Oh, you needn't say 'Ah.' It's very serious; it is indeed.

The accounts are calculated to deceive the dear and confiding public, to whose interests all the daily papers, morning and evening, pretend to be devoted.

The very fact of such deception being attempted, Mr.Stoneham, ought to call forth the anger of any virtuous editor." "Oh, it does, it does; but then it would be a difficult matter to prove.
If some money were gone, now----" "My dear sir, the matter is already proved, and quite ripe for your energetic handling of it; that's what the fifty pounds are for.

This sum will secure for you--to-night, mind, not to-morrow--a statement bristling with figures which the Board of Construction cannot deny.