“No, no, Skinner,” said Mr. Hardie, with increasing alarm: “it is useless for us to deceive ourselves. I was not three minutes in the room, and thought of nothing but getting to town and cashing the bills.”
He rang the bell sharply, and on Betty coming in, asked her what she had done with that paper that was on the floor.
“Took it up and put it on the table, sir. This was it, I think.” And she had her finger upon a paper.
“No! no!” said Mr. Hardie. “The one I mean was much smaller than that.”
“What” said she, with that astonishing memory for trifles people have who never read, “was it a little crumpled up paper lying by the basket?”
“Yes! yes! that sounds like it.”
“Oh, I put that into the basket.”
Mr. Hardie's eye fell directly on the basket, but it was empty. She caught his glance, and told him she had emptied it in the dust-hole as usual. Mr. Hardie uttered an angry exclamation. Betty, an old servant of his wife's, resented it with due dignity by tossing her head as she retired.
“There is no help for it,” said Mr. Hardie bitterly; “we must go and grub in the dust-hole now.”
“Why, sir, your name is not on it, after all.”