"Clerk in a bank!" said he.
"Not the Intercolonial?" I cried.
"That's it," he answered, nodding.
"Then you were there to-day! This is luck; I've been so awfully keen to know exactly what happened."
"I was not there," replied Deedes. "I was having my lunch. I can only tell you what I saw when I got back. There was our cashier sprawled across the counter, and the teller in a heap behind it—both knocked on the head. And there was the empty safe, wide open, with the sun shining into it like a bull's-eye lantern. No, I only wish I had been there: it's such a chance as I shall never get again."
"You'd have shown fight?" said I, gazing at his long athletic limbs, and appreciating the force of his wish as I perceived in what threadbare rags they were imprisoned. "Yes, you'd have stood up to the chap, I know; I can see you doing it!"
"There would have been nothing wonderful in that," was his reply. "I should have had everything to gain and nothing to lose."
"Not your life?"
"It's less than nothing."