of sight.

* * * * *

"My hi, what a pin!" said a stable-boy, who was smoking a cigar, to the
guard, looking at me and putting his finger to his nose.

The fact is, that I had never undressed since my aunt's party; and being
uneasy in mind and having all my clothes to pack up, and thinking of
something else, had quite forgotten Mrs. Hoggarty's brooch, which I had
stuck into my shirt-frill the night before.




CHAPTER II


TELLS HOW THE DIAMOND IS BROUGHT UP TO LONDON, AND PRODUCES WONDERFUL
EFFECTS BOTH IN THE CITY AND AT THE WEST END

The circumstances recorded in this story took place some score of years
ago, when, as the reader may remember, there was a great mania in the
City of London for establishing companies of all sorts; by which many
people made pretty fortunes.

I was at this period, as the truth must be known, thirteenth clerk of
twenty-four young gents who did the immense business of the Independent
West Diddlesex Fire and Life Insurance Company, at their splendid stone
mansion in Cornhill. Mamma had sunk a sum of four hundred pounds in the