No, Tom did not remember anything about it, he said; and Mr. Phillips felt sure the order must have been given to the absent desk boy, when the customer suggested that they should refer back to the book and they would see by that when the bill was paid, and whether this lad or the other was to blame for the neglect.
So the book was produced and the pages turned back to the day when Mr. Longton declared he had paid the bill and given the order. But the name of Longton or anything referring to a payment of ten shillings was not to be found.
"It would be the last thing entered for that day, I should think," said the customer, with a keen look at Tom.
Mr. Phillips ran his finger all down the page, but of course it was not there. "How is this, Flowers?" asked the gentleman, sternly.
"Perhaps—perhaps I forgot it then, and put it in afterwards," stammered Tom, feeling he must say something with those piercing eyes of Mr. Longton's fixed upon him.
"I'll run over and fetch the receipt," said that gentleman. "I should like to have this cleared up now," he added. "That young rascal has been tampering with the money, I know," he muttered to himself as he went out; "I wonder whether he has been dabbling in betting like that young fool of mine," for strange to say it was one of Mr. Longton's clerks who had paid the marked money to Jack.
He soon returned with the receipt and laid it before Mr. Phillips.
There was Tom's name written on it, as having received ten shillings on behalf of Morton & Co., but all the searching through the books for that day, and the one following, had not shown that it had been entered to the firm's account, and consequently it could not have been paid over.
Tom declared he had entered it and paid the money, but he would not say a word beyond in explanation of the fact, and so having looked through the whole of the accounts for the next day, and finding it was not there, Mr. Phillips decided in his own mind that the money had been appropriated by Tom for his own use.
Then Mr. Longton told him of how he had been served by a young clerk whom he trusted implicitly, until he had marked some money, and got a friend to pay it in to this young man, and only a small portion of it found its way back into his drawer.