What you may think of my plan of observation I cannot undertake to say.  It appears to me to unite the invaluable merits of boldness and simplicity.  Fortified by this conviction, I close the present communication with feelings of the most sanguine description in regard to the future, and remain your obedient servant,

Matthew Sharpin.

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

7th July.

Sir,

As you have not honored me with any answer to my last communication, I assume, that, in spite of your prejudices against me, it has produced the favorable impression on your mind which I ventured to anticipate.  Gratified and encouraged beyond measure by the token of approval which your eloquent silence conveys to me, I proceed to report the progress that has been made in the course of the last twenty-four hours.

I am now comfortably established next door to Mr. Jay; and I am delighted to say that I have two holes in the partition, instead of one.  My natural sense of humor has led me into the pardonable extravagance of giving them both appropriate names.  One I call my Peep-Hole, and the other my Pipe-Hole.  The name of the first explains itself; the name of the second refers to a small tin pipe, or tube, inserted in the hole, and twisted so that the mouth of it comes close to my ear, when I am standing at my post of observation.  Thus, while I am looking at Mr. Jay through my Peep-Hole, I can hear every word that may be spoken in his room through my Pipe-Hole.

Perfect candor—­a virtue which I have possessed from my childhood—­ compels me to acknowledge, before I go any farther, that the ingenious notion of adding a Pipe-Hole to my proposed Peep-Hole originated with Mrs. Yatman.  This lady—­a most intelligent and accomplished person, simple, and yet distinguished, in her manners—­has entered into all my little plans with an enthusiasm and intelligence which I cannot too highly praise.  Mr. Yatman is so cast down by his loss, that he is quite incapable of affording me any assistance.  Mrs. Yatman, who is evidently most tenderly attached to him, feels her husband’s sad condition of mind even more acutely than she feels the loss of the money; and is mainly stimulated to exertion by her desire to assist in raising him from the miserable state of prostration into which he has now fallen.  “The money, Mr. Sharpin,” she said to me yesterday evening, with tears in her eyes, “the money may be regained by rigid economy and strict attention to business.  It is my husband’s wretched state of mind that makes me so anxious for the discovery of the thief.  I may be wrong, but I felt hopeful of success as soon as you entered the house; and I believe, that, if the wretch who has robbed us is to be found, you are the man to discover him.”  I accepted this gratifying compliment in the spirit in which it was offered,—­firmly believing that I shall be found, sooner or later, to have thoroughly deserved it.