Secretary of State, and I will send it myself.' With that Mr. Bagwax
took his leave, and remained closeted with Mr. Jones for much of the
remainder of the day.

The moment Sir John was alone he wrote an almost angry note to his
friend Honybun, in conjunction with whom and another Member of
Parliament he had the shooting in Suffolk. Honybun, who was also a
lawyer, though less successful than his friend, was a much better shot,
and was already taking the cream off the milk of the shooting. 'I cannot
conceive,' he said at the end of his letter, 'that, after all my
experience, I should have put myself so much out of my way to serve a
client. A man should do what he's paid to do, and what it is presumed
that he will do, and nothing more. But here I have been instigated by an
insane ambition to emulate the good-natured zeal of a fellow who is
absolutely willing to sacrifice himself for the good of a stranger.'
Then he went on to say that he could not leave London till the Friday.

On the Thursday morning he put all the details together, and himself
drew out a paper for the perusal of the Secretary of State. As he looked
at the matter all round, it seemed to him that the question was so clear
that even Judge Bramber could not hesitate. The evidence of Dick Shand
was quite conclusive,--if credible. It was open, of course, to strong
doubt, in that it could not be sifted by cross-examination. Alone, it
certainly would not have sufficed to extort a pardon from any Secretary
of State,--as any Secretary of State would have been alive to the fact
that Dick might have been suborned. Dick's life had not been such that
his single word would have been regarded as certainly true. But in
corroboration it was worth much. And then if the Secretary or the judge
could be got to go into that very complicated question of the dated
stamp, it would, Sir John thought, become evident to him that the
impression had not been made at the time indicated. This had gradually
been borne in upon Sir John's mind, till he was almost as confident in
his facts as Bagwax himself. But this operation had required much time
and much attention. Would the Secretary, or would the judge, clear his
table, and give himself time to inspect and to measure two or three
hundred postmarks? The date of the fabrication of the postage-stamp
would of course require to be verified by official report;--but if the
facts as stated by Bagwax were thus confirmed, then the fraudulent