When first my attention was directed to this subject, I said, "A cannon fired in an open country cannot by any chance produce such terrible results as a spark in a powder-mill. It is not the event itself that is important, but the things with which it is connected that make it so." But I soon became convinced that this explanation, though specious, was not true--at least, that there was something more; that whenever anything made a great noise, it must connect itself by some of the many hooks and pulleys of society with some of the loud tongues in high places. By high places I do not mean elevated stations, but positions in which men can make themselves heard: some newspaper scribe--one of the things in parliament assembled--a popular preacher--a mob-orator--is either interested in the matter directly or indirectly, immediately or remotely, or else has nothing else to do and wants a hobby, and the whole affair is made the talk of the town. In short, it were endless to search out, arrange, and classify the infinite variety of causes which may render any event notorious, or consign it to speedy oblivion, though it may rend the hearts, ruin the fortunes, desolate the prospects, and destroy the peace of all within a certain little circle. The forgery upon Mr. Scriven made little or no noise in the great world. The first investigation at Bow Street was fully reported in one or two of the morning newspapers. Some others, which had no reporters of their own, abridged it from their "esteemed contemporaries." Others declared there were no matters of public interest at Bow Street that day, because they had not room to report more than the donations of five-pound notes to the poor-box, the receipt of which had been requested to be acknowledged. But the event was a terrible one in the midst of those more immediately interested. Mr. Scriven pursued the inquiry into the facts with a fierceness and a virulence which had not before appeared in his nature; and undoubtedly Mr. Hayley himself might have fallen into danger, had not many little circumstances, some accidental, some skilfully prepared, combined to fix the guilt upon the innocent. As an instance of one of those accidents which served to shelter him, I may mention, that upon the examination of his servants, one of the footmen deposed, and deposed truly, that three or four days before Henry's disappearance, Mr. Hayley had been eagerly inquiring if any one had found a piece of stamped paper--a draft, in short--and seemed very uneasy about it. Mr. Scriven admitted that Hayley had told him he had drawn upon him, and that he had refused to accept the draft. Thus, the body of the document being evidently in Mr. Hayley's handwriting, and the acceptance, which constituted the forgery, being in a feigned hand very like that of Mr. Scriven, the inference was established by the servant's evidence, that Henry had found the draft and used it for his own purposes.