All Sorts and Conditions of Men: An Impossible Story

A very singular accident prevented the "paying out" quite in the sense intended by Mr. Bunker. It happened in this way:

One day when Miss Messenger's cabinet-maker and joiner-in-ordinary, having little or nothing to do, was wandering about the Brewery, looking about him, lazily watching the process of beer-making on a large extensive scale, and exchanging the compliments of the season, which was near the new year, with the workmen, it happened that he passed the room in which Josephus had sat for forty years among the juniors. The door stood open, and he looked in, as he had often done before, to nod a friendly salutation to his cousin. There Josephus sat, with gray hair, an elderly man among boys, mechanically ticking off entries among the lads. His place was in the warm corner near the fire; beside him stood a large and massive safe; the same safe out of which, during an absence of three minutes, the country notes had been so mysteriously stolen.

The story, of course, was well known. Josephus' version of the thing was also well known. Everybody further knew that, until the mystery of that robbery was cleared up, Josephus would remain a junior on 30s. a week. Lastly, everybody (with the kindliness of heart common to our glorious humanity) firmly believed that Josephus had really cribbed those notes, but had been afraid to present them, and so dropped them into a fire, or down a drain. It is truly remarkable to observe how deeply we respect, adore, and venerate virtue – insomuch that we all go about pretending to be virtuous; yet how little we believe in the virtue of each other! It is also remarkable to reflect upon the extensive fields still open to the moralist, after all these years of preaching and exhorting.

Now, as Harry looked into the room, his eye fell upon the safe, and a curious thing occurred. The fragment of a certain letter from Bob Coppin (in which he sent a message by his friend to his cousin, Squaretoes Josephus) quite suddenly and unexpectedly returned to his memory – further, the words assumed a meaning.

"Josephus," he said, stepping into the office, "lend me a piece of paper and a pencil. Thank you."

He wrote down the words exactly as he recollected them – half destroyed by the tearing of the letter.

" … Josephus, my cousin, that he will … 'nd the safe the bundle … or a lark. Josephus is a squaretoes. I hate a man who won't drink. He will … if he looks there."

When he had written these words down he read them over again, while the lads looked on with curiosity and some resentment. Cabinet-makers and joiners have no business to swagger about the office of young gentlemen who are clerks in breweries, as if it were their own place. It is an innovation – a levelling of rank.

"Josephus," Harry whispered, "you remember your cousin, Bob Coppin?"

"Yes; but these are office hours. Conversation is not allowed in the juniors' room."

He spoke as if he was still a boy – as indeed, he was, having been confined to the society of boys, and having drawn the pay of a boy for so many years.

"Never mind rules – tell me all about Bob."

"He was a drinker and a spendthrift – that's enough about him."

Josephus spoke in a whisper, being anxious not to discuss the family disgrace among his fellow-clerks.

"Good! Were you a friend as well as a cousin of his?"

"No, I never was – I was respectable in those days, and desirous of getting my character high for steadiness. I went to evening lectures and taught in the Wesleyan Sunday-schools. Of course, when the notes were stolen, it was no use trying any more for character – that was gone. A young man suspected of stealing £14,000 can't get any character at all. So I gave up attending the evening lectures, and left off teaching in the school, and going to church, and everything."

"You were a great fool, Josephus – you ought to have gone on and fought it out. Now then, on the day that you lost the money, had you seen Bob – do you remember?"

"That day?" the unlucky junior replied; "I remember every hour as plain as if it was to-day. Yes, I saw Bob. He came to the office half an hour before I lost the notes. He wanted me to go out with him in the evening, I forget where – some gardens, and dancing, and prodigalities. I refused to go. In the evening I saw him again, and he did nothing but laugh while I was in misery. It seemed cruel; and the more I suffered the louder he laughed."

"Did you never see Bob again?"

"No; he went away to sea, and he came home and went away again; but somehow I never saw him. It is twenty years now since he went away last, and was never heard of, nor his ship – so, of course, he's dead long ago. But what does it matter about Bob? And these are office hours; and there will, really, be things said if we go on talking – do go away."

Harry obeyed, and left him; but he went straight to the office of the chief accountant and requested an interview.

The chief accountant sent word that he could communicate his business through one of the clerks. Harry replied that his business was of a nature which could not be communicated by a clerk – that it was very serious and important business, which must be imparted to the chief alone; and that he would wait his convenience in the outer office. Presently he was ushered into the presence of the great man.

"This is very extraordinary," said the official. "What can your business be, which is so important that it must not be intrusted to the clerks? Now come to the point, young man – my time is valuable."

"I want you to authorize me to make a little examination in the junior clerks' room."

"What examination, and why?"

Harry gave him the fragment of the letter, and explained where he found it.

"I understand nothing. What do you learn from this fragment?"

"There is no date," said Harry, "but that matters very little. You will observe that it clearly refers to my cousin Josephus Coppin."

"That seems evident – Josephus is not a common name."

"You know my cousin's version of the loss of those notes?"

"Certainly – he said they must have been stolen during the two or three minutes that he was out of the room."

"Yes – now" (Harry wrote a few words to fill up the broken sentences of the letter) "read that, sir."

"Good heavens!"

"My cousin tells me, too," he went on, "that this fellow, Bob Coppin, was in the office half an hour before the notes were missed – why, very likely he was at the time hanging about the place – and that in the evening, when his cousin was in an agony of distress, Bob was laughing as if the whole thing was a joke."

"Upon my word," said the chief, "it seems plausible."

"We can try the thing at once," said Harry. "But I should like you to be present when we do."

"Undoubtedly I will be present – come, let us go at once. By the way, you were the young man recommended by Miss Messenger; are you not?"

"Yes. Not that I have the honor of knowing Miss Messenger personally."

The chief accountant laughed. Cabinet-makers do not generally know young ladies of position; and this was such a remarkably cheeky young workman.

They took with them four stout fellows from those who toss about the casks of beer. The safe was one of the larger kind, standing three feet six inches high, on a strong wooden box, with an open front – it was in the corner next to Josephus' seat. Between the back of the safe and the wall was a space of an inch or so.

"I must trouble you to change your seat," said the chief accountant to Josephus, "we are about to move this safe."

Josephus rose, and the men presently, with mighty efforts, lugged the great heavy thing a foot or two from its place.

"Will you look, sir?" asked Harry. "If there is anything there, I should like you, who know the whole story, to find it."

The chief stooped over the safe and looked behind it. Everybody was now aware that something was going to happen; and though pens continued to be dipped into inkstands with zeal, and heads to be bent over desks with the devotion which always seizes a junior clerk in presence of his chief, all eyes were furtively turned to Josephus' corner.

"There is a bundle of papers," he said. "Thank you."

Harry picked them up and placed them in his hands.

The only person who paid no heed to the proceedings was the most concerned.

The chief accountant received them (a rolled bundle, not a tied-up parcel, and covered inch deep with black dust). He opened it and glanced at the contents – then a strange and unaccountable look came into his eyes as he handed them to Josephus.

"Will you oblige me, Mr. Coppin," he said, "by examining those papers?"

It was the first time that the title of "Mr." had been bestowed upon Josephus during all the years of his long servitude. He was troubled by it, and he could not understand the expression in his chief's eyes; and when he turned to Harry for an explanation he met eyes in which the same sympathy and pity were expressed. When he turned to the boys, his fellow-clerks, he was struck by their faces of wondering expectation.