“I will, sir!  I will!  What on earth can I do?”

“You can turn the balanced scale and win the day!”

“Can I, sir?” cried Evans, greatly puzzled.

“You will find some wine in that cupboard, my man; fill yourself a tumbler.  I will sip my tea, and explain myself.  You think this Hawes is a mountain;—­no! he is a large pumpkin hollow at the core.  You think him strong;—­no! he but seems so, because some of the many at whose mercy he is are so weak.  There is a flaw in Hawes, which must break him sooner or later.  He is a felon.  The law hangs over his head by a single hair; he has forfeited his office, and will be turned out of it the moment we can find among his many superiors one man with one grain either of honesty or intelligence.”

“But how shall we find that, sir?”

“By looking for it everywhere, till we find it somewhere.  Mr. Hawes tells me, in other words, that the visiting justices do not possess the one grain we require.  I profit by the intelligence the enemy was weak enough to give me, and I go—­not to the visiting justices.  To-morrow, if my case is ready, I send a memorial to the Home-Office, accuse Hawes of felonious practices, and demand an inquiry.”

Evans’s eye sparkled; he began to gather strength from the broken man.

“But now comes the difficulty.  A man should never strike a feeble blow.  My appeal will be read by half-educated clerks.  If I don’t advance something that the small official mind can take in, I shall never reach the heads of the office.  It would be madness to begin by attacking national prejudices, by combating a notion so stupid, and therefore so deep-rooted, as that prisoners have no legal rights.  No! the pivot of my assault must be something that a boy can afford to be able to comprehend for eighty pounds a year and a clerk’s desk in a Government office.  Now, Mr. Hawes has, for many months past, furnished false reports to the justices and to the Home-Office.  Here is the true stepping-stone to an inquiry, here is the fact to tell on the official mind; for the man’s cruelty and felonious practices are only offenses against God and the law; but a false report is an offense against the office.  And here I need your help.”

“You shall have it, sir.”

“I want to be able to prove this man’s reports to be lies.  I think such a proof exists,” said Mr. Eden, very thoughtfully.  “Now, if it does, you alone can get hold of it for me.  One of the turnkeys notes down every punishment of a prisoner in a small pocket-book, for I have seen him.”

“Yes, sir; Fry does—­never misses!”

“What becomes of those notes?”

“I don’t know.”

“What if he keeps a book and enters everything in it?”

“But if he had, shouldn’t we have caught a glimpse of it?”

“Humph!  A man does not take notes constantly and destroy them.  Fry, too, is an enthusiast in his way.  I am sure he keeps a record, and if he does it is a true one, for he has no object in tampering with his own facts.  Bring me such a book or any record kept by Fry; let me have it for twelve hours and Hawes shall be turned out of the jail and you stay in it.”