ch clock were listened to
with impatience, lest its iron tongue should drown a single sentence.
This latter interruption did not, however, often take place, for Mr.
Balais was as brief in speech as he was energetic in action. He began by
at once allowing the main facts which the prosecution had proved--that
the notes had been taken from Trevethick's box, and found in the
prisoner's possession, who had been detected in the very act of
endeavoring to change them for notes of another banking company. But
what he maintained was, that this exchange was not, as Mr. Smoothbore
had suggested, effected for the purpose of realizing the money, but
simply of throwing dust in the prosecutor's eyes. He had changed the
notes only with the intention of returning his own money to Trevethick
under another form. Even so young a man, and one so thoroughly ignorant
of the ways of the world and of business matters as was his client, must
surely have been aware, if using the money for himself had been his
object, that it could be traced in notes of the Mining Company as easily
as in notes of the Bank of England; nay, by this very proceeding of his,
he had even given them a _double_ chance of being traced. He (Mr.
Balais) was not there, of course, to justify the conduct of the prisoner
at the bar. It was unjustifiable, it was reprehensible in a very high
degree; but what he did maintain was that, even taking for granted all
that had been put in evidence, this young man's conduct was not
criminal; it was not that of a thief. He had never had the least
intention of stealing this money; his scheme had been merely a stratagem
to obtain the object of his affections for his wife. This Trevethick was
a hard and grasping man, and it was necessary for the young fellow to
satisfy him that he was possessed of certain property before he would
listen to any proposition for his daughter's hand. His idea--a wrong and
foolish one, indeed, but then look at his youth and inexperience--was to
impose upon this old miser, by showing him his own money in another
form, and then, when he had gained his object, to return it to him. Mr.
Balais was, for his own part, as certain of such being the fact as that
he was standing in that court-house. Let them turn their eyes on the
unhappy prisoner in the dock, and judge for themselves whether he looked
like the mere felon which his learned friend had painted him, or the
romantic, self-deceiving, thoughtless lad, such as he (Mr