"I hope, for the man's own sake, it's not my shopman." "Guess again, sir," says I.
"That idle slut, the maid ?" says he.
"She is idle, sir," says I, "and she is also a slut; my first inquiries about her proved as much as that.

But she's not the thief." "Then, in the name of Heaven, who is ?" says he.
"Will you please to prepare yourself for a very disagreeable surprise, sir ?" says I."And, in case you lose your temper, will you excuse my remarking that I am the stronger man of the two, and that if you allow yourself to lay hands on me, I may unintentionally hurt you, in pure self-defense." He turned as pale as ashes, and pushed his chair two or three feet away from me.
"You have asked me to tell you, sir, who has taken your money," I went on.

"If you insist on my giving you an answer--" "I do insist," he said, faintly.

"Who has taken it ?" "Your wife has taken it," I said, very quietly, and very positively at the same time.
He jumped out of the chair as if I had put a knife into him, and struck his fist on the table so heavily that the wood cracked again.
"Steady, sir," says I."Flying into a passion won't help you to the truth." "It's a lie!" says he, with another smack of his fist on the table--"a base, vile, infamous lie! How dare you--" He stopped, and fell back into the chair again, looked about him in a bewildered way, and ended by bursting out crying.
"When your better sense comes back to you, sir," says I, "I am sure you will be gentleman enough to make an apology for the language you have just used.

In the meantime, please to listen, if you can, to a word of explanation.