Tom walked to the desk feeling as though a load had been lifted from him, and thinking the matter would probably blow over now, for his uncle could not wait to see Mr. Phillips, and he would have left the City again long before his uncle could get away.
It was nearly twelve o'clock before that gentleman came, but just behind him walked the customer who had paid Tom the ten shillings a few days before.
"Thompson, why has Mr. Longton's order not been executed?" called Mr. Phillips, as he came in.
"Mr. Longton's order? I have none, sir," replied the foreman.
Mr. Phillips turned to the customer. "I told you I had heard nothing of it," he said; "your messenger must have forgotten it."
"But I gave the order myself more than a week ago. Let me see, why I paid the last bill to the lad at the desk at the same time, it was only a small item, but I wanted to clear that account off to which it belonged, and I dropped in one evening just as you were closing."
"More than a week ago," repeated Mr. Phillips; "then the lad who took the order is not here to-day, for he has been laid up with a bad cold."
"No, he's at the desk now," said Mr. Longton, looking round and seeing Tom as he lifted his head from his writing; "that's the lad I gave the order to when I paid him the ten shillings. Don't you remember it, my lad?" he said, walking up to the desk and confronting Tom.
But instead of owning that he had forgotten the order, as he clearly had, he stuck to it that he had never received it.
"Do you remember me paying you the ten shillings just as you were leaving the desk?" asked the gentleman.