seven, one,« said Bitzer.
    »Come!« retorted Bounderby, stopping to wheel round upon him, »let's have
none of your interruptions. It's enough to be robbed while you're snoring
because you're too comfortable, without being put right with your four seven
ones. I didn't snore, myself, when I was your age, let me tell you. I hadn't
victuals enough to snore. And I didn't four seven one. Not if I knew it.«
    Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, in a sneaking manner, and seemed at once
particularly impressed and depressed by the instance last given of Mr.
Bounderby's moral abstinence.
    »A hundred and fifty odd pound,« resumed Mr. Bounderby. »That sum of money,
young Tom locked in his safe, not a very strong safe, but that's no matter now.
Everything was left, all right. Some time in the night, while this young fellow
snored - Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am, you say you have heard him snore?«
    »Sir,« returned Mrs. Sparsit, »I cannot say that I have heard him precisely
snore, and therefore must not make that statement. But on winter evenings, when
he has fallen asleep at his table, I have heard him, what I should prefer to
describe as partially choke. I have heard him on such occasions produce sounds
of a nature similar to what may be sometimes heard in Dutch clocks. Not,« said
Mrs. Sparsit, with a lofty sense of giving strict evidence, »that I would convey
any imputation on his moral character. Far from it. I have always considered
Bitzer a young man of the most upright principle; and to that I beg to bear my
testimony.«
    »Well!« said the exasperated Bounderby, »while he was snoring, or choking,
or Dutch-clocking, or something or other - being asleep - some fellows, somehow,
whether previously concealed in the house or not remains to be seen, got to
young Tom's safe, forced it, and abstracted the contents. Being then disturbed,
they made off; letting themselves out at the main door, and double-locking it
again (it was double-locked, and the key under Mrs. Sparsit's pillow) with a
false key, which was picked up in the street near the Bank, about twelve o'clock
to-day. No alarm takes place, till this chap, Bitzer, turns out this morning,