Roland shook his head. “I was in too great a stew to notice letters, or anything else. This will cure Galloway of sending bank-notes in letters. Have the post-office people had news of the loss sent to them? They must hunt up the thief.”
“Mr. Galloway is sure to do all that’s necessary,” remarked Arthur.
“For my part, if I sent bank-notes across the country in letters, I should expect them to be taken. I wonder at Galloway. He is cautious in other things.”
Others had wondered at Mr. Galloway, besides Roland Yorke. A man of caution, generally, he yet persisted in the practice of enclosing bank-notes in letters. Persons cognizant of this habit had remonstrated with him; not his clerks—of course they had not presumed to do so. Mr. Galloway, who liked his own way, had become somewhat testy upon the point, and, not a week before the present time, had answered in a sort of contradictory spirit that his money-letters had always gone safely hitherto, and he made no doubt they always would go safely. The present loss, therefore, coming as it were, to check his obstinacy, vexed him more than it would otherwise have done. He did not care for the loss of the money half so much as he did for the tacit reproof to himself.
“I wonder if Galloway took the number of the note?” cried Roland. “Whether or not, though, it would not serve him much: bank-notes lost in transit never come to light.”
“Don’t they, though!” retorted Arthur. “Look at the many convictions for post-office robbery!”
“I do not suppose that one case in ten is tracked home,” disputed Roland. “They are regular thieves, those letter-carriers. But, then, the fellows are paid so badly.”
“Do not be so sweeping in your assertions, Roland Yorke,” interposed Mr. Galloway, coming forward from his own room. “How dare you so asperse the letter-carriers? They are a hard-working, quiet, honest body of men. Yes, sir; honest—I repeat it. Where one has yielded to temptation, fingering what was not his own, hundreds rise superior to it, retaining their integrity. I would advise you not to be so free with your tongue.”
Not to be free with his tongue would have been hard to Roland.
“Lady Augusta was sending a box of camomile pills to some friend in Ireland, the other day, sir, but it was never heard of again, after she put it into the post-office, here,” cried he to Mr. Galloway. “The fellow who appropriated it no doubt thought he had a prize of jewels. I should like to have seen his mortification when he opened the parcel and found it contained pills! Lady Augusta said she hoped he had liver complaint, and then they might be of service to him.”