‘Damnation!’ shouted Trevelyan.

‘But the credit, sir,’ said Bozzle.  ’The credit is mine.  And here is Mr S. has been down a interfering with me, and doing no ’varsal good, as I’ll undertake to prove by evidence before the affair is over.’

‘The affair is over,’ said Stanbury.

’That’s as you think, Mr S. That’s where your information goes to, Mr S. Mine goes a little beyond that, Mr S. I’ve means as you can know nothing about, Mr S. I’ve irons in the fire, what you’re as ignorant on as the babe as isn’t born.’

‘No doubt you have, Mr Bozzle,’ said Stanbury.

’I has.  And now if it be that I must speak before a third party, Mr Trewillian, I’m ready.  It ain’t that I’m no ways ashamed.  I’ve done my duty, and knows how to do it.  And let a counsel be ever so sharp, I never yet was so ’posed but what I could stand up and hold my own.  The Colonel, Mr Trewillian, got a letter from your lady this morning.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Stanbury, sharply.

’Very likely not, Mr S. It ain’t in my power to say anything whatever about you believing or not believing.  But Mr T.’s lady has wrote the letter; and the Colonel he has received it.  You don’t look after these things, Mr S. You don’t know the ways of ’em.  But it’s my business.  The lady has wrote the letter, and the Colonel why, he has received it.’  Trevelyan had become white with rage when Bozzle first mentioned this continued correspondence between his wife and Colonel Osborne.  It never occurred to him to doubt the correctness of the policeman’s information, and he regarded Stanbury’s assertion of incredulity as being simply of a piece with his general obstinacy in the matter.  At this moment he began to regret that he had called in the assistance of his friend, and that he had not left the affair altogether in the hands of that much more satisfactory, but still more painful, agent, Mr Bozzle.  He had again seated himself, and for a moment or two remained silent on his chair.  ‘It ain’t my fault, Mr Trewillian,’ continued Bozzle, ’if this little matter oughtn’t never to have been mentioned before a third party.’

‘It is of no moment,’ said Trevelyan, in a low voice.  ’What does it signify who knows it now?’

‘Do not believe it, Trevelyan,’ said Stanbury.

’Very well, Mr S. Very well.  Just as you like.  Don’t believe it.  Only it’s true, and it’s my business to find them things out.  It’s my business, and I finds ’em out.  Mr Trewillian can do as he likes about it.  If it’s right, why, then it is right.  It ain’t for me to say nothing about that.  But there’s the fact.  The lady, she has wrote another letter; and the Colonel why, he has received it.  There ain’t nothing wrong about the post-office.  If I was to say what was inside of that billydou why, then I should be proving what I didn’t know; and when it came to standing up in court, I shouldn’t be able to hold my own.  But as for the letter, the lady wrote it, and the Colonel he received it.’