’It is everything.  When they were making up their case in Australia, and when the woman brought out the cover with his writing upon it, with the very name, Mrs. Caldigate, written by himself,—­Crinkett wasn’t contented with that.  So they put their heads together, and said that if the letter could be got to look like a posted letter,—­a letter sent regularly by the post,—­that would be real evidence.  The idea wasn’t bad.’

‘Nothing has ever been considered better evidence than postmarks,’ said Curlydown, with authority.

’It was a good idea.  Then they had to get a postage-stamp.  They little knew how they might put their foot into it there.  And they got hold of some young man at the post-office who knew how to fix a date-stamp with a past date.  How these things become clear when one looks at them long enough!’

‘Only one has to have an eye in one’s head.’

‘Yes,’ said Bagwax, as modestly as he could at such a moment.  ’A fellow has to have his wits about him before he can do anything out of the common way in any line.  You’d tell Sir John everything at once;—­wouldn’t you?’ Curlydown raised his hat and scratched his head.  ‘Duty first, you know.  Duty first,’ said Bagwax.

‘In a man’s own line,—­yes,’ said Curlydown.  ’Somebody else ought to have found that out.  That’s not post-office.  It’s stamps and taxes.  It’s very hard that a man should have to cut the nose off his own face by knowing more than he need know.’

‘Duty!  Duty!’ said Bagwax as he opened the carriage-door and jumped out on to the platform.

When he got up to the cottage, Mrs. Curlydovvn assured him that it was quite a cure for sore eyes to see him.  Sophia, the elder of the two daughters at home, told him that he was a false truant; and Jemima surmised that the great attractions of the London season had prevented him from coming down to Enfield.  ‘It isn’t that, indeed,’ he said.  ’I am always delighted in running down.  But the Caldigate affair has been so important!’

‘You mean the trial,’ said Mrs. Curlydown.  ’But the man has been in prison ever so long.’

‘Unjustly!  Most unjustly!’

‘Is it so, really?’ asked Jemima.  ‘And the poor young bride?’

‘Not so much of a bride,’ said Sophia.  ‘She’s got one, I know.’

‘And papa says you’re to go out to Botany Bay,’ said Jemima.  ’It’ll be years and years before you are back again.’  Then he explained it was not Botany Bay, and he would be back in six months.  And, after all, he wasn’t going at all.  ’Well, I declare, if papa isn’t down the walk already,’ said Jemima, looking out of the window.

‘I don’t think I shall go at all,’ said Bagwax in a melancholy tone as he went up-stairs to wash his hands.

The dinner was very pleasant; and as Curlydown and his guest drank their bottle of port together at the open window, it was definitely settled that Bagwax should reveal the mystery of the postage-stamp to Sir John Joram at once.  ’I should have it like a lump of lead on my conscience all the time I was on the deep,’ said Bagwax, solemnly.