"A young man?" asked Claude; "is he clean-shaven, and slight, and dark?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Oh, then he is the one I saw wearing your coat that day outside the police court! What did he say when you asked him how he got it, father?"
"He told me he had purchased it for a few shillings from a second-hand clothes shop in East Street. I went there and saw the proprietor of the shop, who informed me that he bought the coat last October from a stranger—a tall old man, evidently on tramp, who had declared he had had it given to him. I asked the wardrobe dealer if there had been anything in a pocket of the coat, but he said 'No,' that doubtless if there had been the old man had discovered it before he had offered the coat for sale. I think so too."
"Then there is not the remotest chance of your getting your pocket-book again, father," Edwin said, glancing sympathetically at his cousin, whose eyes were downcast and cheeks aflame with a burning, painful blush.
"None whatever. Freddy's protégé must have been a regular professional beggar. I only wish those two five-pound notes had fallen into worthier hands."
"I am glad you are satisfied that the Lamberts are honest people," Claude said, "for I was beginning to be afraid of what we might find out about them, although they seemed perfectly straight. You won't mind our going to see Bobby again now, will you, father?"
"Not in the least. Don't look so downcast, Freddy. What's done cannot be mended, and your father insists on paying me back the money I lost, or, rather, the money you gave away," Dr. Dennis amended, with a slight smile.
"I am glad of that," Freddy replied, looking up with a brightening face. "I hoped he would, but I didn't like to ask him."
After the doctor had left the room the boys turned again to their lessons. By-and-by Claude finished his work for the night and went downstairs, and a few minutes later Edwin closed his books and prepared to follow his brother, but, on reaching the door, he chanced to look back and met Freddy's eyes fixed upon him with a wistful sadness in their glance which touched his kind heart.