Mr. Hobbs was almost overwhelmed by his sense of responsibility, and Dick was all alive and full of energy.  He began to write a letter to Ben, and he cut out the picture and inclosed it to him, and Mr. Hobbs wrote a letter to Cedric and one to the Earl.  They were in the midst of this letter-writing when a new idea came to Dick.

“Say,” he said, “the feller that give me the paper, he’s a lawyer.  Let’s ax him what we’d better do.  Lawyers knows it all.”

Mr. Hobbs was immensely impressed by this suggestion and Dick’s business capacity.

“That’s so!” he replied.  “This here calls for lawyers.”

And leaving the store in the care of a substitute, he struggled into his coat and marched down-town with Dick, and the two presented themselves with their romantic story in Mr. Harrison’s office, much to that young man’s astonishment.

If he had not been a very young lawyer, with a very enterprising mind and a great deal of spare time on his hands, he might not have been so readily interested in what they had to say, for it all certainly sounded very wild and queer; but he chanced to want something to do very much, and he chanced to know Dick, and Dick chanced to say his say in a very sharp, telling sort of way.

“And,” said Mr. Hobbs, “say what your time’s worth a’ hour and look into this thing thorough, and I’ll pay the damage,—­Silas Hobbs, corner of Blank street, Vegetables and Fancy Groceries.”

“Well,” said Mr. Harrison, “it will be a big thing if it turns out all right, and it will be almost as big a thing for me as for Lord Fauntleroy; and, at any rate, no harm can be done by investigating.  It appears there has been some dubiousness about the child.  The woman contradicted herself in some of her statements about his age, and aroused suspicion.  The first persons to be written to are Dick’s brother and the Earl of Dorincourt’s family lawyer.”

And actually, before the sun went down, two letters had been written and sent in two different directions—­one speeding out of New York harbor on a mail steamer on its way to England, and the other on a train carrying letters and passengers bound for California.  And the first was addressed to T. Havisham, Esq., and the second to Benjamin Tipton.

And after the store was closed that evening, Mr. Hobbs and Dick sat in the back-room and talked together until midnight.

XIV

It is astonishing how short a time it takes for very wonderful things to happen.  It had taken only a few minutes, apparently, to change all the fortunes of the little boy dangling his red legs from the high stool in Mr. Hobbs’s store, and to transform him from a small boy, living the simplest life in a quiet street, into an English nobleman, the heir to an earldom and magnificent wealth.  It had taken only a few minutes, apparently, to change him from an English nobleman into a penniless little impostor, with no right to any of the splendors he had been enjoying.  And, surprising as it may appear, it did not take nearly so long a time as one might have expected, to alter the face of everything again and to give back to him all that he had been in danger of losing.