“He might lose a good deal in a year,” suggested the Major. “I’m really Bar’s friend, and I wouldn’t like to see him do that.”
“Then tell me what you know!”
“Not till I’m out of this,” exclaimed the Major, with great energy, “and not till I see those papers. There’s things that nobody else can explain.”
“Well,” replied the Judge, thoughtfully, “I think I’ll go to work about you. Take two or three days, you know. And even then I’ll fix it so you’ll walk right back here again if you break your word.”
Major Montague must have felt even surer about the lawyer’s power in the premises than he did himself, so abjectly and earnestly did he labor to assure the Judge of the honesty of his intentions.
A few days in prison will sometimes have a wonderfully quieting and sobering effect, and the Major was just the sort of man to yield to such an agency.
Judge Danvers left the prison feeling as if he had somehow stumbled upon a very promising piece of work, but he had a good deal more before him that day, and he meant to be out of the city on the evening train.
As for Major Montague, after the lawyer’s departure and his return to his own very narrow quarters, he sunk upon his cot bed with a remarkably sulky expression of countenance.
“I haven’t told him anything,” he muttered; “but he’s bound to know. I reckon I can always keep some kind of a hold on Barnaby, but there ain’t any ready money to be made out of the Judge. Never mind; I’ll see my way to something before I get through with ’em all. See if I don’t.”
Bar Vernon’s affairs were in good hands, beyond a doubt, and no man of Major Montague’s calibre was likely to “get up much earlier in the morning” than Bar’s self-appointed counsel.