stepped forward. Carefully extracting a folded sheet of foolscap from
the pocket of his chapkan (a tight-fitting garment, worn by nearly all
classes in full dress), he spread it out on the table and respectfully
asked the manager to run his eye over it.

"By Jove," remarked the latter, with great surprise, "here's some
one has been copying my signature--and Pulin's writing too!"

All eyes were now bent on the incriminating document. It was made up
of many fragments of paper, carefully pasted on a sheet of foolscap,
and bore the words, "Tárak Ghose & Co., two hundred rupees, 200,"
repeated at least twenty times. Below was "A.G. Henderson," also
multiplied many-fold. The manager asked where Rámtonu had found the
paper, and received the following answer:--"Your Highness, Pulin Babu
here did not come to office on Monday; and for the next few days his
work was done by Gyánendra Babu, who got the keys of his desk. I knew
that he and some other clerks detested Pulin Babu, so I watched their
movements narrowly, to see whether they would try to get him into a
scrape, and more than once I surprised Gyánendra and Lakshminarain
whispering together. On Tuesday neither of them left the office for
lunch with the other clerks, and I seized some pretext for entering
the room where they sit. Gyánendra roughly bade me begone; so I went to
the verandah outside and peeped through the jilmils (Venetian blinds)
of a window close to their desk. Lakshminarain was copying some English
words from a paper on his left side, while the other clerk looked on,
nodding and shaking his head from time to time. After writing in this
fashion for a while, Lakshminarain took a sheet of notepaper covered
with writing and copied the signature many times, until both babus
were satisfied with the result. Then I saw Gyánendra unlock Pulin
Babu's desk, take out a cheque-book, and hand it to the other man,