Then after a few days his mood gradually changed. Mr. Clutterbuck began to take a secret pride in his connection with these Gemmiferous Caves of the Orient. There was no doubt at all that for the second time in two months he was a public man; a martyr perhaps in a public cause. Greatness began to apparel him, and side by side with the case of Rex _v._ Fishmonger and Another, which he understood in a certain fashion, the Anapootra Ruby Mines--still a complete mystery to him--supported his growing fame. One inept Radical sheet went so far as to suggest that he was the cat's-paw of the wicked men who had perpetrated that fraud upon their country, but the greater part, especially of the Democratic press, nobly maintained his integrity, and said they would see him through to the end. His new publicity consoled him a crumb, a mere crumb, in the prospect of the dreadful days before him. He sometimes indulged the inward hope that no evidence could unseat a man now so deservedly the darling of a Public cause; in the intervals when this consolation failed him, he fell back upon the memory of his integrity and unblemished if short public life; he had assured and reassured himself as to the Bogey Man, and he was at last at ease upon the bag of gold. The consciousness of his innocence out-weighed the gloomy prophecies of William Bailey, and as the days passed the memory of that gentleman's forecast grew paler and faded away. But the passage of the days brought with it also the time of the election petition; there was a week, five days--four. On the last Monday he sat for an hour or two with Charlie--who was of course to give evidence--they considered every aspect, and could see no loophole for attack. On the morrow they went into Mickleton together, and as they passed at speed through the streets of the borough they seemed to him too silent; even the police he thought--it may have been but fancy--but even the police, he could have sworn, were colder and more formal than of yore. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 8: Liver.] [Footnote 9: Then (in 1911) Mr. Buffle.] CHAPTER XII The court in which the Mickleton election petition was to be heard sat in the Town Hall of that borough, and the first day, Tuesday, was occupied in formalities, but even so the end of the great room set aside for the public was crowded.