'Just so—just so, Sir John,' said Bagwax, feeling that every word spoken to the lawyer renewed his own hopes of going out to Sydney,—but feeling also that Sir John would be wrong, very wrong, if he subjected his client to so unnecessarily prolonged a detention in the Cambridge county prison. 'They do keep a book which would be quite conclusive. I could have the pages photographed.'
'Would not that be best? and you might probably find out who it was who gave this fraudulent aid.'
'I could find out everything,' said Bagwax, energetically; 'but—'
'But what?'
'It is all found out there. It is indeed, Sir John. If I could get you to go along with me, you would see that that letter couldn't have gone through the Sydney post-office.'
'I think I do see it. But it is so difficult, Mr. Bagwax, to make others see things.'
'And if it didn't,—and it never did;—but if it didn't, why did they say it did? Why did they swear it did? Isn't that enough to make any Secretary let him go?'
The energy, the zeal, the true faith of the man, were admirable. Sir John was half disposed to rise from his seat to embrace the man, and hail him as his brother,—only that had he done so he would have made himself as ridiculous as Bagwax. Zeal is always ridiculous. 'I think I see it all,' he said.
'And won't they let the man go?'
'There were four persons who swore positively that they were present at the marriage, one of them being the woman who is said to have been married. That is direct evidence. With all our search, we have hitherto found no one to give us any direct evidence to rebut this. Then they brought forward, to corroborate these statements, a certain amount of circumstantial evidence,—and among other things this letter.'