ador and
his sweet."

"I must see him, or an innocent man will die to-morrow. Tell him so.
Here's a guinea."

"Is there? Step aside here."

He waited in torments till the message went through the gamut of
lackeys, and got, more or less mutilated, to the minister.

He detached a buffet, who proposed to Mr. Bradbury to call at the
Do-little office in Westminster next morning.

"No," said Bradbury, "I don't leave the house till I see him. Innocent
blood shall not be spilled for want of a word in time."

The buffer retired, and in came a duffer who said the occasion was not
convenient.

"Ay, but it is," said Bradbury, "and if my lord is not here in five
minutes, I'll go up-stairs and tell my tale before them all, and see if
they are all hair-dressers' dummies, without heart or conscience or
sense."

In five minutes in came a gentleman, with an order on his breast, and
said, "You are a Bow Street officer?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Name?"

"Bradbury."

"You say the man condemned to die to-morrow is innocent?"

"Yes, my lord."

"How do you know?"

"Just taken the real culprit."

"When is the other to suffer?"

"Twelve to-morrow."

"Seems short time. Humph! Will you be good enough to take a line to
the sheriff? Formal message to-morrow." The actual message ran:--

"Delay execution of Cox till we hear from Windsor. Bearer will give
reasons."

With this Bradbury hurried away, not to the sheriff, but to the prison,
and infected the jailor and the chaplain and all the turnkeys, with
pity for the condemned, and the spirit of delay.

Bradbury breakfasted, and washed his face, and off to the sheriff.
Sheriff was gone out. Bradbury hunted him from pillar to post, and
could find him nowhere. He was at last obliged to go and wait for him
at Newgate.

He arrived at the stroke of twelve to superintend the execution.
Bradbury put the minister's note into his hand.

"This no use," said he. "I want an order from His Majesty, or the
Privy Council at least."

"Not to delay," suggested the chaplain. "You have an the day for it."

"All the day! I can't be all the day hanging a single man. My time is
precious, gentlemen." Then, his bark being worse than his bite, he
said, "I shall come again at four o'clock, and then, if there is no
news from Windsor, the law must take its course."

He never came again, though, for, even as he turned his back to retire,
there was a faint cry from the farthest part