Then Varick honestly spoke out. He got hold of the Jewish Franks and told him all that he knew and suspected about Smith. The evidence was too overwhelming for Franks to scoff at. Any man scoffing at Varick’s tale would himself be under suspicion. Varick was given to understand that he had changed Franks’ opinion of Smith. Thereafter Franks comported himself in a manner to convince Varick that he regarded Smith as a “Liar and a Rascal.” It is permissible to ask, was this pretense or reality? If Varick knew things, Varick was a man to handle wisely. If Varick knew things, it would be foolish to lose touch with him and thus lose the benefit of knowing how much was known or surmised outside. These, of course, are the arguments of suspicion, but they are made concerning the same Jewish officer who, on finding that Colonel Fitzgerald had discovered the profiteering venture in which Franks and Arnold were partners, was wise enough to inform Arnold and permit the plan to drop. Major Franks’ previous behavior, like Benedict Arnold’s, arouses the suspicion. Benedict Arnold appeared to Varick to regard Smith as a good man; Franks appeared to Varick to share Arnold’s opinion; but whether Franks really _knew_, as Arnold knew, and only pretended to change his opinion that he might keep the confidence of Varick, is a point on which Franks’ previous conduct compels the mind to waver. How well Franks knew Arnold may be gathered from other points brought out in this testimony: Major Franks—“How often did Arnold go down the river in his barge, whilst I was at Robinson’s House (Arnold’s headquarters)? Did I ever attend him, and what were our opinions and conduct on his going down and remaining absent the night of the twenty-first of September?” (This was the night of his meeting André.) Colonel Varick—(answers that Franks, to his knowledge, never accompanied Arnold) “But when I was informed by you or Mrs. Arnold, on the twenty-first, that he was not to return that evening, I suggested to you that I supposed he had gone to Smith’s, and that I considered Arnold’s treatment of me in keeping up his connection with Smith, in opposition to the warning I had given him, as very ungenteel, and that I was resolved to quit his family” (meaning his staff). “We did thereupon concert the plan of preventing their further intimacy by alarming Mrs. Arnold’s fears.... “You did at the same time inform me that you could not account for his connections with Smith—that you knew him to be an avaricious man and suspected he meant to open trade with some person in New York, under sanction of his command, and by means of flags and the unprincipled rascal Smith; and that you were induced to suspect it from the letter he wrote to Anderson in a commercial style as related to you by me. We thereupon pledged to each our word of honor that if our suspicions should prove to be founded in fact, we would instantly quit him.”