My experience in the law, Mr.Frank, has convinced me that if everybody burned everybody else's letters, half the courts of justice in this country might shut up shop.

Do you happen to know whether the letter we are now speaking of contained anything like an avowal or confession of the forgery ?" "Of course it did," says he.

"Could the writer express his contrition properly without making some such confession ?" "Quite easy, if he had been a lawyer," says I."But never mind that; I'm going to make a guess--a desperate guess, mind.

Should I be altogether in error if I thought that this letter had been stolen; and that the fingers of Mr.Davager, of suspicious commercial celebrity, might possibly be the fingers which took it ?" "That is exactly what I wanted to make you understand," cried Mr.Frank.
"How did he communicate the interesting fact of the theft to you ?" "He has not ventured into my presence.

The scoundrel actually had the audacity--" "Aha!" says I."The young lady herself! Sharp practitioner, Mr.
Davager." "Early this morning, when she was walking alone in the shrubbery," Mr.
Frank goes on, "he had the assurance to approach her, and to say that he had been watching his opportunity of getting a private interview for days past.