174 ANGLING SKETCHES 



if he had been attempting any mischief, did not 

 succeed in it. Had there been any trouble, it is 

 likely enough that he would have involved Allen 

 in the grief. Then Allen would have been in a, 

 perhaps, unprecedented position. He could have 

 established an alibi, as far as the Jew's affairs 

 went, by proving that he had been at Blocksby's 

 at the hour when the boy would truthfully have 

 sworn that he had let him into Isaacs' chambers. 

 And, as far as the charge against him at 

 Blocksby's went, the evidence of the young Jew 

 would have gone to prove that he was at Isaacs', 

 where he had no business to be, when we saw him 

 at Blocksby's. But, unhappily, each alibi would have 

 been almost equally compromising. The difficulty 

 never arose, but the reason why Allen refused to 

 give any account of what he had been doing, and 

 where he had been, at four o'clock on that Saturday 

 afternoon — a refusal that told so heavily against 

 him — is now sufficiently clear. His statement 

 would, we may believe, never have- been corro- 

 borated by the youthful Hebrew, who certainly 

 had his own excellent reasons for silence, and who 



