"I don't think you will get anything out of him, Mr. Porson," the constable said. "The fact that he has been trusted by these fellows shows that he is not a man to peach upon those with whom he deals; and in the next place he would know well enough that if any one were convicted of stealing this book he would be liable to a prosecution as receiver; and though we could scarcely get a conviction against him, as we could not prove that he knew that it was stolen, it would do him no good."

The boys all stood up in a line. "I will look at 'em, sir," White said; "but, as I have told you, I should not know the man as I bought that book from, from Adam. Anyhow none of these little ones couldn't be he. If it weren't a man, he were as big as a man. You don't suppose an honest tradesman would buy an expensive book like that from a kid."

So saying he placed a pair of horn spectacles on his nose and walked round the line.

"I don't see any one here whose face I ever see before as far as I knows; but bless you, the man as I bought it of might have had hair all over his face, and I be none the wiser looking at him across that counter of mine in the dark."