“We conceive that nothing would be gained by encouraging the refuse of mankind to make frivolous complaints against their best friend.” Here the speaker and his mates wore a marked air of self-satisfaction. “Well, sir! has the present examination in no degree shaken your confidence in Mr. Hawes's discretion?” “Not in the least.” “Nor in your own mode of scrutinizing his acts?” “Not in the least.” “That is enough! Gentlemen, I need detain you no longer from the business you have described as more important than this!” Mr. Lacy shrugged his shoulders. Mr. Eden smiled to him, and said quietly: “As they were in the days of Shakespeare so they were in the days of Fielding; as they were in the days of Fielding so they are in the days of light; and as they are now so will they remain until they are swept away from the face of the soil. (Keep your eye on Mr. Hawes, edging away there so adroitly.) It is not their fault, it is their nature; their constitution is rotten; in building them the State ignored Nature, as Hawes ignores her in his self-invented discipline.” “What do you mean, sir?” “That no _body_ of men ever gave for nothing anything worth anything, nor ever will. Now knowledge of law is worth something; zeal, independent judgment, honesty, humanity, diligence are worth something (are you watching Mr. Hawes, sir?); yet the State, greedy goose, hopes to get them out of a body of men for nothing!” “Hum! Why has Mr. Hawes retired?” “You know as well as I do.” “Oh! do I?” “Yes, sir! the man's terror when Fry's journal was proposed in evidence, and his manner of edging away obliquely to the direction Fry took, were not lost on a man of your intelligence.” “If you think that, why did you not stop him till Fry came back with the book?” “I had my reasons; meantime we are not at a stand-still. Here is an attested copy of the journal in question; and here is Mr. Hawes's log-book. Fry's book intended for no mortal eye but his own; Hawes's concocted for inspection.” “I see a number of projecting marks pasted into Fry's journal!” “Yes, sir; on some of these marks are written the names of remarkable victims, recurring at intervals; on others are inscribed the heads of villainy--'the black-hole,' 'starvation,' 'thirst,' 'privation of exercise,' 'of bed,' 'of gas,' 'of chapel,' 'of human converse,' 'inhuman threats,' and the infernal torture called the 'punishment-jacket.' Somewhat on the plan of 'Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica.' So that you can at will trace any one of Mr. Hawes's illegal punishments, and see it running like a river of blood through many hapless names; or you can, if you like it better, track a fellow-creature dripping blood from punishment to punishment, from one dark page to another, till release, lunacy, or death closes the list of his recorded sufferings.”