1>8(> The Merchant's Clerk ; [MARCH, 



also said by Mistress Edwards to be from time to time missing and her 

 lamentations and anger on such subjects were always uttered in Simon's 

 hearing, plentifully interlarded with expressions of wonder, " who the 

 thief could be," and assertions, " that such things could not walk off 

 without hands :" whereat her facetious husband never failed to remark, 

 " Yes, deary, they might, if they had feet." And this as regularly put 

 her in a passion, and made her vow that, " for her part, she could not 

 see what use there was in keeping about the house such lazy, loitering, 

 good-for-nothing vagabonds,'' with various other such ungentle epithets, 

 all of which were quite plainly launched at the unfortunate Simon. 



At the end of these thirteen months, Simon, together with several 

 articles of plate, was found missing in real earnest all mere suspicion 

 on the subject being removed by the following note, which Master Ed- 

 wards found on his breakfast table : 



" Even in the very commission of a deed of wrong and villany, can I 

 not refrain from bidding you farewell my kind, mine honoured, my 

 loved master ! even while I am doing wrong to you. But I am driven 

 to it, and away from your house, by the cruel and unjust treatment of 

 your wife: beware of her, master of mine, for she is evil. Whither I go, 

 God knows I care not nor will He ; for I have abandoned his ways, 

 and broken his commands but I am forced to it forced to rob, that I 

 may not starve of hunger to rob you, to whom I owe every thing but 

 indeed, indeed, I would not so do, knew I not that what I take from 

 you can be little missed, and that if I spoke to you, you would not let 

 me quit your house : and sure I am, that if I did so without means of 

 living, you would sorrow that the child of your fostering the boy of 

 your rearing whom you have ever treated more as a son than a servant, 

 should be * * *" 



The words that immediately followed were quite illegible, being so 

 blotted, as though the writer had written over drops of water : then 

 followed a short thick dash of the pen and then in a large and hurried 

 hand, the following : 



" But this is foolish and fallacy farewell, Sir, *lear master, fare- 

 well : forgive me I cannot pray for you I ask you not to pray 

 for me but do, if you think it will avail me aught if not, forget me 

 and oh ! forgive me. I am going wrong good bye." 



The signature was also much blotted, but it could be traced to be, 

 " the thankful orphan, Simon/' 



The effect produced by this event was very different, both on Mas- 

 ter Edwards and his wife as well as from what might have been ex- 

 pected : the former, to use a homely word, took on greatly about the 

 matter, was evidently much hurt, became silent and abstracted, and 

 went so far as to shed tears ; a thing which his oldest friends those 

 who had been his school-fellows declared they had never known him 

 do in all his life not even when under the infliction of Doctor Ever- 

 ard's cane the right-reverend high master of Saint Paul's School, where 

 Master Edwards had learned Latin and peg-top. Mistress Edwards, on 

 the other hand, shewed a great share of rejoicing on the occasion, de- 

 claring she thought his room cheaply purchased at the loss of the trum- 

 pery he had taken with him. That same afternoon, during dinner, she 

 hinted that she had already a young man in her eye, as the successor of 

 Simon ; at which observation, her husband merely sighed, and made 

 no inquiries and yet he probably had no conception whom his wife had 

 iu her eye, though if some of their neighbours had been present, they 



