'I never thought the cover went for much,' said Honybun.
'For very little,—for nothing at all perhaps,—till proved to be fraudulent. If they had left the letter alone their case would have been strong enough for a conviction. As it was, they were fools enough to go into a business of this sort; but they have done so, and as they have been found out, the falsehood which has been detected covers every word of their spoken evidence with suspicion. It will be like losing so much of his heart's blood, but the old fellow will have to give way.'
'He never gave way in his life.'
'We'll make him begin.'
'I'll bet you a pony he don't.'
'I'll take the bet,' said the late Attorney-General. But as he did so he looked round to see that not even a gamekeeper was near enough to hear him.
On that Friday Bagwax was in a very melancholy state of mind at his office, in spite of the brilliancy of his prospects with Miss Curlydown. 'I'll just come back to my old work,' he said to his future father-in-law. 'There's nothing else for me to do.'
This was all as it should be, and would have been regarded a day or two ago by Curlydown as simple justice. There had been quite enough of that pottering over an old envelope, to the manifest inconvenience of himself and others. But now the matter was altered. His was a paternal and an affectionate heart, and he saw very plainly the pecuniary advantage of a journey to Sydney. And he knew too that, in official life as well as elsewhere, to those who have much, more is given. Now that Bagwax was to him in the light of a son, he wished Bagwax to rise in the world. 'I wouldn't give it up,' said he.
'But what would you do?'
'I'd stick to it like wax till they did something for me.'