im that Bagwax would come on the Wednesday with
further evidence,--with evidence which should be positively conclusive.
Bagwax had, in the meantime, been with his friend Smithers at the
stamp-office, and was now fully prepared. By the help of Smithers he had
arrived at the fact that the postage-stamp had certainly been fabricated
in 1874, some months after the date imprinted on the cover of the letter
to which it was affixed.

'No, Sir John;--only one this time. We needn't move anything.' All the
chaos had been restored to its normal place, and looked as though it had
never been moved since it was collected.

'And we can prove that this queen's-head did not exist before the 1st
January, 1874.'

'Here's the deposition,' said Bagwax, who, by his frequent intercourse
with Mr. Jones, had become almost as good as a lawyer himself,--'at
least, it isn't a deposition, of course,--because it's not sworn.'

'A statement of what can be proved on oath.'

'Just that, Sir John. It's Mr. Smithers! Mr. Smithers has been at the
work for the last twenty years. I knew it just as well as he from the
first, because I attend to these sort of things; but I thought it best
to go to the fountain-head.'

'Quite right.'

'Sir John will want to hear it from the fountain-head I said to myself;
and therefore I went to Smithers. Smithers is perhaps a little
conceited, but his word is--gospel. In a matter of postage-stamps
Smithers is gospel.'

Then Sir John read the statement; and though he may not have taken it
for gospel, still to him it was credible. 'It seems clear,' he said.

'Clear as the running stream,' said Bagwax.

'I should like to have all that gang up for perjury, Mr. Bagwax.'

'So should I, Sir John;--so should I. When I think of that poor dear
lady and her infant babe without a name, and that young father torn from
his paternal acres and cast into a vile prison, my blood boils within my
veins, and all my passion to see foreign climes fades into the
distance.'

'No foreign climes now, Mr. Bagwax.'

'I suppose not, Sir John,' said the hero, mournfully

'Not if this be true.'

'It's gospel, Sir John;--gospel. They might send me out to set that
office to rights. Things must be very wrong when they could get hold of
a date-stamp and use it in that way. There must be one of the gang in
the office.'

'A bribe did it, I should say.'

'I could find it out, Sir John. Let me alone for that. You could say
that you have found