There was another person in the front room now, who had entered during
this interview. In spite of the suspicion of the attorney, this person
was Captain Chinks, who was promptly summoned to the private office, and
the conference renewed.

The ill-visaged person in the front room was probably a bank robber
himself, though he was not yet implicated in the Buckingham affair. He
was a friend of the robbers who had been arrested, and had employed
Squire Gilfilian--who was as eloquent in speech as he was skilful in the
intricacies of the law--to defend his unfortunate friends. The lawyer
would not do so without a fee in advance; and the five hundred dollars
had been sent in the letter which had so strangely disappeared. Either
the sender knew no better than to trust so large a sum in the mail, or
his criminal associations made him diffident about applying for a check
or draft.

Hearing nothing from the lawyer, he had written again, stating that he
had sent the money at the time agreed upon. The squire had expected the
letter, and intended immediately to start for the county town in the
jail of which the robbers were confined, in order to examine his case.
In reply to the second letter, he telegraphed to his correspondent in
Portland that he had not received the first; and then the robbers' agent
had come himself. There he was in the front room.

CHAPTER VI.

CAPTAIN CHINKS.

"I'm very glad to see you, Captain Chinks," said Squire Gilfilian, as he
conducted the gentleman of doubtful reputation into his private office.

"Is my case likely to come up soon?" asked the captain.

"No, I don't think it will ever come up," answered the lawyer.

"Well, you have changed your tune since I was here before," added
Captain Chinks, with a satisfied smile. "Then everything was going to be
proved against me; now, nothing."

"I have sifted down all the evidence the government has; and you needn't
trouble yourself any more about that matter."

"I suppose an innocent man never need fear," said the captain.

Squire Gilfilian looked at the gentleman of doubtful reputation, opened
his eyes with a jerk, and a faint smile played about the corners of his
mouth. But professionally he dealt with evidence and questions of law,
rather than with truth itself. He did not ask what was true, only what
could be proved.

Little Bobtail listened attentively to this conversation, though he had
very little interest in it. But he could not h