Bagwax.  He thought that the pertinacity of Bagwax, and the coming of Dick Shand at the moment of his holidays, were circumstances which justified the use of a little internal strong language,—­such as he had occasionally used externally before he had become attorney-general.  In fact he had—­damned Dick Shand and Bagwax, and in doing so had considered that Jones his clerk was internal.  ‘I wish he had gone to Sydney a month ago,’ he said to Jones.  But when Jones suggested that Bagwax might be sent to Sydney without further trouble, Sir John’s conscience pricked him.  Not to be able to shoot a Suffolk partridge on the 1st of September was very cruel, but to be detained wrongfully in Cambridge jail was worse; and he was of opinion that such cruelty had been inflicted on Caldigate.  On the Saturday Dick Shand had been with him.  He had remained in town on the Monday and Tuesday by agreement with Mr. Seely.  Early on the Tuesday intimation was given to him 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.’