Page:Tales of Bengal (S. B. Banerjea).djvu/204

168 Pulin clasped his hands in a mute appeal for mercy, whereon Rámtonu 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