Little Bobtail Part 8

"I do think so."

"It will ruin his reputation, send him to the state prison, and spoil his prospects forever. Now, don't you think it would be better for him to give up the money, if I should say to him that I wouldn't mention the matter?"

"I think he had better give it up, whether you mention it or not,"

answered Bobtail, more calmly.

"Then don't you think _you_ had better give it up?"

"I tell you again, I didn't open the letter, and haven't seen the money," protested Bobtail, violently.

"You had better think it over."

"I don't want to think it over."

"You will have to go to jail if you don't."

"I can go to jail, but I can't give up what I haven't got, nor own up to what I didn't do."

"The letter which you brought to my office that morning contained five hundred dollars in one bill. It was my advance fee for defending the Buckingham Bank robbers. Their friends raised the money; but only a rogue would have sent it in cash. The letter is gone. It was last in your hands. Now you had better think it all over, and you may stay here and do so, while I talk with the gentleman in the other room." And the squire opened the door.

There was another person in the front room now, who had entered during this interview. In spite of the suspicion of the attorney, this person was Captain c.h.i.n.ks, who was promptly summoned to the private office, and the conference renewed.

The ill-visaged person in the front room was probably a bank robber himself, though he was not yet implicated in the Buckingham affair. He was a friend of the robbers who had been arrested, and had employed Squire Gilfilian--who was as eloquent in speech as he was skilful in the intricacies of the law--to defend his unfortunate friends. The lawyer would not do so without a fee in advance; and the five hundred dollars had been sent in the letter which had so strangely disappeared. Either the sender knew no better than to trust so large a sum in the mail, or his criminal a.s.sociations made him diffident about applying for a check or draft.

Hearing nothing from the lawyer, he had written again, stating that he had sent the money at the time agreed upon. The squire had expected the letter, and intended immediately to start for the county town in the jail of which the robbers were confined, in order to examine his case.

In reply to the second letter, he telegraphed to his correspondent in Portland that he had not received the first; and then the robbers' agent had come himself. There he was in the front room.

CHAPTER VI.

CAPTAIN c.h.i.n.kS.

"I'm very glad to see you, Captain c.h.i.n.ks," said Squire Gilfilian, as he conducted the gentleman of doubtful reputation into his private office.

"Is my case likely to come up soon?" asked the captain.

"No, I don't think it will ever come up," answered the lawyer.

"Well, you have changed your tune since I was here before," added Captain c.h.i.n.ks, with a satisfied smile. "Then everything was going to be proved against me; now, nothing."

"I have sifted down all the evidence the government has; and you needn't trouble yourself any more about that matter."

"I suppose an innocent man never need fear," said the captain.

Squire Gilfilian looked at the gentleman of doubtful reputation, opened his eyes with a jerk, and a faint smile played about the corners of his mouth. But professionally he dealt with evidence and questions of law, rather than with truth itself. He did not ask what was true, only what could be proved.

Little Bobtail listened attentively to this conversation, though he had very little interest in it. But he could not help indorsing, in his own mind, the remark of Captain c.h.i.n.ks, that the innocent never need fear.

He was under suspicion himself; but he was not afraid.

"Ah, Bobtail! are you a witness for the prosecution?" said the captain, appearing now to see the youth for the first time.

"No, sir. I'm the defendant myself," replied Bobtail, pleasantly; for the arrival of the captain seemed to settle all his trouble. "I am in stays just now, caught in going about, and there I hang. If you will just give me a pull on the lee side, I shall go about handsomely."

"Certainly, my lad. If you miss stay in this law business, there's always a lee sh.o.r.e to drift on to, and no room to wear round."

"Captain c.h.i.n.ks," interposed the lawyer, who did not so clearly comprehend the nautical view of the case, "I lost a letter the day you went away."

"And Bobtail found it," suggested the captain.

"Not exactly. I never received it."

"Then I don't see how you lost it."

"Little Bobtail and the post-master agree perfectly on one point--that two letters were given him, one to carry to you and the other to me, on the day you went away."

"And I perfectly agree with Little Bobtail and the post-master. He gave me my letter in your front office, only two minutes after you told me that I was certain to be arrested in less than twenty-four hours for being concerned in that smuggling case, when it was as plain as the nose on a man's face that I had nothing whatever to do with it. He gave me that letter, and that letter called me on business down to Mount Desert.

You see, squire, when a man is innocent--"

"Exactly so," interposed Squire Gilfilian. "We will grant that you are entirely innocent. But the smuggling case is not before the court just now. We were speaking of the letters. We will grant that Bobtail delivered your letter to you all right. Do you happen to know anything about the other letter?"

The squire glanced at Little Bobtail, to discover any evidences of guilt or confusion in his face. Certainly he was deeply interested, and even anxious; but, being young and inexperienced, he had an undoubting confidence in the ultimate triumph of truth and innocence.

"I do happen to know all about it," replied Captain c.h.i.n.ks, after he also had glanced at the boy.

"Well, what do you know about it?" demanded the lawyer, rather impatiently, as the captain paused, and looked again at the alleged culprit.

"Bobtail gave me my letter, and I opened it at once, for I was expecting that letter, and had asked for it at the post-office, for it was getting rather late for the steamer, and I had some business in Rockland. I was expecting to meet a man down to Bar Harbor."

"We will grant that your letter was all right, captain. We were speaking of the other letter."

"I thought we were speaking of both of them," laughed the captain.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"It is all settled in regard to your letter; and you have been to Rockland, Bar Harbor, and down into the provinces, for aught I know."

"No, I haven't. I was in St. John--let me see--two years ago; and I haven't been there since. You seem to think I have business down in the provinces, squire."

"I don't know anything at all about your business, captain. But they say that a great deal of brandy finds its way into the States without paying any duties," chuckled the squire.

"You don't mean to say that I have anything to do with bringing it in--do you, Squire Gilfilian?" demanded the captain, who seemed to be damaged in his feelings by the lawyer's thrust.

"Certainly not."

"Because you have just proved that I have not."