"And you'd better let it stop here to end with," retorted the Squire. "That's my best advice to you, Lee. My goodness! Accuse a respectable man's son of what might transport him, on the authority of a drunken fellow who runs away from an inn without paying his bill! The likeliest thing is that this Cotton did it himself. How else should he know about it? Don't you let your tongue carry this further, Lee, or you may find yourself in the wrong box." Lee looked just a little staggered. A faint flush appeared in his withered face. The Squire's colour was at its fiercest. He was hard at the best of times to take in extraordinary tales, and utterly scouted this one. There was no man he had a greater respect for than Thomas Rymer. "I hoped you might be for prosecuting, sir. It would set me right with the world." "You are a fool, Lee. The world has not thought you wrong yet. Prosecute! I! Upon this cock-and-bull story! Mr. Rymer would prosecute me in turn, I expect, if I did. You'd better not let this get to his ears: you might lose your post." "Mr. Rymer, sir, must know how wild his son has been." "Wild! Most of the young men of the present day are that, as it seems to me," cried the Squire, in his heat. "Mine had better not let me catch _them_ at it, though. I'd warm their ears well beforehand if I thought they ever would---- Do you hear, Mr. Johnny?" I had been leaning on the back of a chair in the quietest corner for fear of being sent away. When the Squire put himself up like this, he would say anything. "To be a bit wild is one thing, Lee; to commit felony quite another: Rymer's son would be no more guilty of it than you would. It's out of all reason. And do you take care of your tongue. Look here, man: suppose I took this up, as you want me, and it was found to have been Cotton or some other gaol-bird who did it, instead of young Rymer: where would you be? In prison for defamation of character, if the Rymers chose to put you there. Be wise in time, Lee, and say no more." "It might have been as you say, sir--Cotton himself; though I'm sure that never struck me," returned Lee, veering round to the argument. "One thing that made me believe it, was knowing that Ben Rymer might easily get access to the letters." "And that's just the reason why you should have doubted it," contradicted the Squire. "He would be afraid to touch them because of the ease with which he could do it. Forgive you for coming up, you say?" added the Squire, as Lee rose with some humble words of excuse. "Of course I will. But don't forget that a word of this, dropped abroad, might put your place, as postman, in jeopardy." "And that would never do," said Lee, shaking his head. "_I_ should think not. It's cold to-day, isn't it?" "Frightful cold, sir." "And you could come through it with this improbable story! Use your sense another time, Lee. Here, Johnny, take Lee into the kitchen, and tell them to give him some cold beef and beer."