After a short preamble, in which he apologised to the bench for interfering, he begged to be informed of the state of the case, whereupon the matter was laid before him in all its details.

He was not slow in taking a fair view of it, and spoke well and eloquently in my behalf--insisting on the improbability that a person of my habits and position would be wilfully mixed up with a transaction like that of which it appeared I was suspected--adding, that as he was fully convinced of my innocence, he was ready to enter into any surety with respect to my appearance at any time to answer anything which might be laid to my charge.

This last observation had particular effect, and as he was a person universally respected, both for his skill in his profession and his general demeanour, people began to think that a person in whom he took an interest could scarcely be concerned in anything criminal, and though my friend the magistrate--I call him so ironically--made two or three demurs, it was at last agreed between him and his brethren of the bench, that, for the present, I should be merely called upon to enter into my own recognisance for the sum of two hundred pounds, to appear whenever it should be deemed requisite to enter into any farther investigation of the matter.
"So I was permitted to depart from the tribunal of petty justice without handcuffs, and uncollared by a constable; but people looked coldly and suspiciously upon me.

The first thing I did was to hasten to the house of my beloved, in order to inform her of every circumstance attending the transaction.

I found her, but how?
A malicious female individual had hurried to her with a distorted tale, to the effect that I had been taken up as an utterer of forged notes; that an immense number had been found in my possession; that I was already committed, and that probably I should be executed.