“Oh, fine. I’ve seen him before, giving away tracts on the streets. He left me one, after buying the Bible and trying to beat me down two shillings.”
“Have you got it now?”
“No; I used it to light the gas—it saved a match, you know.”
I thought if any one was likely to save money and die rich that one was Tim, but I was to change my opinion soon by discovering that the smart young broker was as great a spendthrift as he was a screw. After some further conversation I warned him to say nothing to Morley of my visit, should that worthy return, as I had no doubt he would, to see Tim’s father. I am doubtful if Tim kept his promise. Certainly if any one offered him a shilling to break it, the promise would instantly kick the beam.
After the visit to Tim the suspected yard-keeper seemed a good deal depressed. He went back once, and had a hot quarrel with Tim’s father, threatening the police again, but failing to fulfil that threat. He said the Bible must be got, and the broker promised to do his best—which meant nothing.
In the meantime I had been much occupied in thought about Tim himself. His answers to me had appeared frank and truthful enough, but a dire suspicion that it was possible for the monkey to cheat and deceive even me crept into my mind. I discovered that Tim was squandering money right and left, quite unknown to his father. He sometimes went to Portobello, or Leith, or Musselburgh with his companions, and spent a day there, Tim always paying the entire expense, like a lord of the land.
Could it be possible that Tim was himself the purchaser of that Family Bible, and the “revival” merely a creation of his vivid imagination?
So strong a hold did this idea take of my mind that I gave up watching Morley, and turned my undivided attention to Tim. I could not find that he had changed a £50 bank-note, but I did discover that he had been seen with two twenties. I, therefore, only waited till he should be out with his friends for a day’s squandering, and then I pounced on him in the midst of his jolity. Tim appeared mightily crestfallen, but grandly demanded to know what was the charge against him. I replied by asking where he got all the money he had been spending. His reply staggered me a little.
“What! is it my father who has set you on to this?”
Now, why should Tim blurt out that? To me it implied that Tim had taken the money from his father. I threw out a hint about a Family Bible being a good bank to draw from. Tim looked puzzled, and really did not seem to grasp the idea. I did not enlighten him with an explanation, but I myself was enlightened next day by his father, who had discovered that his smart son had broken in on a hoard of his own, and lessened it by nearly £60. He nevertheless did not wish to charge Tim with the robbery, but merely requested that that clever monkey might be handed over to him for punishment.