“Ah, but you see it was that meddling Butterby, not Galloway,” returned Yorke. “As if Galloway did not know us chaps in his office better than to suspect us!”
“I fancy Butterby is fonder of meddling than he need be,” said the organist. “A certain person in the town, living not a hundred miles from this very spot, was suspected of having made free with a ring, which disappeared from a dressing-table, where she was paying an evening visit; and I declare if Butterby did not put his nose into it, and worm out all the particulars!”
“That she had not taken it?”
“That she had. But it produced great annoyance; all parties concerned, even those who had lost the ring, would rather have buried it in silence. It was hushed up afterwards. Butterby ought to understand people’s wishes, before he sets to work.”
“I wish press-gangs were in fashion!” emphatically uttered Roland. “What a nice prize he’d make!”
“I suppose I can depend upon you to take the duty at College this morning?” Mr. Williams said to Arthur, as he was leaving them.
“Yes, I shall be out in time for the examination at the Guildhall. The hour fixed is half-past eleven.”
“Old villains the magistrates must have been, to remand it at all!” was the concluding comment of Mr. Roland Yorke.