The cabman would not undertake the job at all unless he were so instructed on the spot, asserting that in this way he would be able to prove that the orders he obeyed came from the lady’s husband.  And there was the crafty pseudo-waiter, with the napkin and no hat, who had carried the boy to the cab in which his father was sitting.  And there were the two cabmen.  Bozzle planned it all, and with some difficulty arranged the preliminaries.  How successful was the scheme, we have seen; and Bozzle, for a month, was able to assume a superiority over his wife, which that honest woman found to be very disagreeable.

‘There ain’t no fraudulent abduction in it at all,’ Bozzle exclaimed, ’because a wife ain’t got no rights again her husband, not in such a matter as that.’  Mrs Bozzle replied that if her husband were to take her child away from her without her leave, she’d let him know something about it.  But as the husband had in his possession the note for a hundred pounds, realized, Mrs Bozzle had not much to say in support of her view of the case.

On the morning after the occurrence, while Sir Marmaduke was waiting with his solicitor upon a magistrate to find whether anything could be done, the following letter was brought to Mrs Trevelyan at Gregg’s Hotel: 

’Our child is safe with me, and will remain so.  If you care to obtain legal advice you will find that I as his father have a right to keep him under my protection.  I shall do so; but will allow you to see him as soon as I shall have received a full guarantee that you have no idea of withdrawing him from my charge.

’A home for yourself with me is still open to you on condition that you will give me the promise that I have demanded from you; and as long as I shall not hear that you again see or communicate with the person to whose acquaintance I object.  While, you remain away from me I will cause you to be paid 50 a month, as I do not wish that you should be a burden on others.  But this payment will depend also on your not seeing or holding any communication with the person to whom I have alluded.

Your affectionate and offended husband,

Louis Trevelyan.

A letter addressed to The Acrobats’ Club will reach me.’

Sir Rowley came home dispirited and unhappy, and could not give much comfort to his daughter.  The magistrate had told him that though the cabman might probably be punished for taking the ladies otherwise than as directed, if the direction to Baker Street could be proved, nothing could be done to punish the father.  The magistrate explained that under a certain Act of Parliament the mother might apply to the Court of Chancery for the custody of any children under seven years of age, and that the court would probably grant such custody unless it were shewn that the wife had left her husband without sufficient cause.  The magistrate could not undertake to say whether or no sufficient cause had here been given or whether the