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[Illustration: CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

Fourth Series

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

NO. 729.      SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1877.      PRICE 1½_d._]




A BUNCH OF KEYS.


I am a professional man, and reside in the West End of London. One
morning some few months back, my assistant on coming to attend to his
duties produced a bunch of keys, which he informed me he had just
picked up at the corner of a street leading from Oxford Street.

'Hadn't they best be handed over to the police?' suggested my
assistant. I wish to goodness I had at once closed with his suggestion;
but I didn't, much to my own cost, as will be presently seen.

'Well, I don't know,' was my answer. 'I rather think it will be a wiser
plan to advertise them, if the owner is really to have a chance of
recovering them; for to my mind, articles found in that way and handed
over to the police are rarely heard of again.'

An advertisement for the _Times_ was duly drawn up and sent off for
insertion. It merely stated where the keys had been picked up, and
where the owner of the bunch could have it returned to him on giving
a proper description. The next morning the advertisement appeared;
and though I half expected that some applications might be made later
on in the same day, it passed over quite quietly. But the following
morning I had a foretaste of