To call in the police, to give up the body, to cover London with handbills describing John Dickson and Ezra Thomas, to fill the papers with paragraphs, Mysterious Occurrence in the Temple--Mr Forsyth admitted to bail, this was one course, an easy course, a safe course; but not, the more he reflected on it, not a pleasant one.

For, was it not to publish abroad a number of singular facts about himself?
A child ought to have seen through the story of these adventurers, and he had gaped and swallowed it.

A barrister of the least self-respect should have refused to listen to clients who came before him in a manner so irregular, and he had listened.

And O, if he had only listened; but he had gone upon their errand--he, a barrister, uninstructed even by the shadow of a solicitor--upon an errand fit only for a private detective; and alas!--and for the hundredth time the blood surged to his brow--he had taken their money! 'No,' said he, 'the thing is as plain as St Paul's.

I shall be dishonoured! I have smashed my career for a five-pound note.' Between the possibility of being hanged in all innocence, and the certainty of a public and merited disgrace, no gentleman of spirit could long hesitate.