'I think I shall be home to-morrow, but I will not say so for certain. I have been at the Home Office, but they would tell me nothing. A man was very civil to me, but explained that he was civil only because he knew nothing about the case. I think I shall call on Mr. Bagwax at the Post-office to-morrow, and after that return to Folking. Send in for the day-mail letters, and then you will hear from me again if I mean to stay.'
At ten o'clock on the following day he was at the Post-office, and there he found Bagwax prepared to take his seat exactly at that hour. Thereupon he resolved, with true radical impetuosity, that Bagwax was a much better public servant than Mr. Brown. 'Well, Mr. Caldigate,—so we've got it all clear at last,' said Bagwax.
There was a triumph in the tone of the clerk's voice which was not intelligible to the despondent old squire. 'It is not at all clear to me,' he said.
'Of course you've heard?'
'Heard what? I know all about the postage-stamp, of course.'
'If Secretaries of State and judges of the Court of Queen's Bench only had their wits about them, the postage-stamp ought to have been quite sufficient,' said Bagwax, sententiously.
'What more is there?'
'For the sake of letting the world know what can be done in our department, it is a pity that there should be anything more.'
'But there is something. For God's sake tell me, Mr. Bagwax.'
'You haven't heard that they caught Crinkett just as he was leaving Plymouth?'