“If I had had the presence of mind to show any proper spirit I should have flung it away, though any adequate gesture of the kind would have gravely affected my equilibrium upon the wall.  As it was, in the wildness of the moment, I put it in my waistcoat pocket, and, picking my way back by wall and ladder, landed in the respectable streets once more.  Not before, however, I had seen with my own eyes the two awful and lamentable facts—­ that the burglar was climbing up a slanting roof towards the chimneys, and that Raymond Percy (a priest of God and, what was worse, a gentleman) was crawling up after him.  I have never seen either of them since that day.

“In consequence of this soul-searching experience I severed my connection with the wild set.  I am far from saying that every member of the Christian Social Union must necessarily be a burglar.  I have no right to bring any such charge.  But it gave me a hint of what such courses may lead to in many cases; and I saw them no more.

“I have only to add that the photograph you enclose, taken by a Mr. Inglewood, is undoubtedly that of the burglar in question.  When I got home that night I looked at his card, and he was inscribed there under the name of Innocent Smith.—­Yours faithfully,
                                     “John Clement Hawkins.”

Moon merely went through the form of glancing at the paper.  He knew that the prosecutors could not have invented so heavy a document; that Moses Gould (for one) could no more write like a canon than he could read like one.  After handing it back he rose to open the defence on the burglary charge.

“We wish,” said Michael, “to give all reasonable facilities to the prosecution; especially as it will save the time of the whole court.  The latter object I shall once again pursue by passing over all those points of theory which are so dear to Dr. Pym.  I know how they are made.  Perjury is a variety of aphasia, leading a man to say one thing instead of another.  Forgery is a kind of writer’s cramp, forcing a man to write his uncle’s name instead of his own.  Piracy on the high seas is probably a form of sea-sickness.  But it is unnecessary for us to inquire into the causes of a fact which we deny.  Innocent Smith never did commit burglary at all.

“I should like to claim the power permitted by our previous arrangement, and ask the prosecution two or three questions.”

Dr. Cyrus Pym closed his eyes to indicate a courteous assent.

“In the first place,” continued Moon, “have you the date of Canon Hawkins’s last glimpse of Smith and Percy climbing up the walls and roofs?”

“Ho, yus!” called out Gould smartly.  “November thirteen, eighteen ninety-one.”

“Have you,” continued Moon, “identified the houses in Hoxton up which they climbed?”

“Must have been Ladysmith Terrace out of the highroad,” answered Gould with the same clockwork readiness.