“If you give me leave, my lord, either before your lordship’s court sits, or after it rises, to-morrow.  I should like to come and tell your lordship what has passed.”

“Do so, Mr. Peters, at nine o’clock to-morrow morning.  And see you play me no trick, sir, in this matter; if you do, by —–­, sir, I’ll lay you by the heels!”

“You need fear no trick from me, my lord; had I not wished to serve you, and acquit my own conscience, I never would have come all this way to talk with your lordship.”

“I’m willing to believe you, Mr. Peters; I’m willing to believe you, sir.”

And upon this they parted.

“He has either painted his face, or he is consumedly sick,” thought the old Judge.

The light had shown more effectually upon his features as he turned to leave the room with a low bow, and they looked, he fancied, unnaturally chalky.

“D—–­ him!” said the Judge ungraciously, as he began to scale the stairs:  “he has half-spoiled my supper.”

But if he had, no one but the Judge himself perceived it, and the evidence was all, as any one might perceive, the other way.

CHAPTER III

Lewis Pyneweck

In the meantime the footman dispatched in pursuit of Mr. Peters speedily overtook that feeble gentleman.  The old man stopped when he heard the sound of pursuing steps, but any alarms that may have crossed his mind seemed to disappear on his recognizing the livery.  He very gratefully accepted the proffered assistance, and placed his tremulous arm within the servant’s for support.  They had not gone far, however, when the old man stopped suddenly, saying,

“Dear me! as I live, I have dropped it.  You heard it fall.  My eyes, I fear, won’t serve me, and I’m unable to stoop low enough; but if you will look, you shall have half the find.  It is a guinea; I carried it in my glove.”

The street was silent and deserted.  The footman had hardly descended to what he termed his “hunkers,” and begun to search the pavement about the spot which the old man indicated, when Mr. Peters, who seemed very much exhausted, and breathed with difficulty, struck him a violent blow, from above, over the back of the head with a heavy instrument, and then another; and leaving him bleeding and senseless in the gutter, ran like a lamplighter down a lane to the right, and was gone.

When an hour later, the watchman brought the man in livery home, still stupid and covered with blood, Judge Harbottle cursed his servant roundly, swore he was drunk, threatened him with an indictment for taking bribes to betray his master, and cheered him with a perspective of the broad street leading from the Old Bailey to Tyburn, the cart’s tail, and the hangman’s lash.

Notwithstanding this demonstration, the Judge was pleased.  It was a disguised “affidavit man,” or footpad, no doubt, who had been employed to frighten him.  The trick had fallen through.