"Your manner is offensive, Mr. Hucks, but for the moment I must overlook it. The fact is, I want information, if you can give it, on an urgent matter. One of my charges is missing."
"Charges?" repeated Mr. Hucks. "Eh? Lost one of your orphans? Well, I haven't found him—or her, if it's a girl. Why don't you go to the police?"
"It is a boy. Naturally I hesitate to apply to the police if the poor child can be recovered without their assistance. Publicity in these matters, as no doubt you can understand—"
Mr. Hucks nodded.
"I understand fast enough."
"The newspapers exaggerate . . . and then the public—even the charitable public—take up some groundless suspicion—"
"Puts two and two together," agreed Mr. Hucks, still nodding, "and then the fat's in the fire. No, I wouldn' have the police poke a nose into the 'Oly Innocents—not if I was you. But how do I come into this business?"
"In this way. One of your employees was delivering coal to-day at the
Orphanage—"
"Fifteen ton."
"—and I have some reason to believe that the child escaped by way of the coal-cellar. I am not suggesting that he was helped."