“Well?” said the vicar.
“What do you say to embezzlement? Embezzled the moneys of the poor.”
“Embezzlement!” exclaimed the vicar, indignantly; “why, sir, it’s sacrilege—an abomination!”
“But you know it might turn out to be a mistake after all, and it would be better to have charged a man with embezzling than being a thief.”
“Ah! Timson, I wish I could think so—I do indeed; but it can’t be a mistake. You had your own suspicions of him.”
“Well, yes,” said Timson, drily; “but I hadn’t then thought of the Papist. That’s the man, sir. Leadenhall Street to a China orange on it.”
“But you remember how confused he was in the church that day.”
“What! the Papist fiddler?”
“No, no—Pellet. I couldn’t help thinking something of it then. And, besides, look at the long hours he has been in the habit of spending in the church alone. I’ve known him to be there for hours, and not a sound escape from the organ—no boy there, in fact.”
“Ah!” said Timson, “I’d give five shillings or a pound of my best green for leave to give that boy a good sound quilting.”