t was one of the branches that he
took prizes in at school. I will examine the desk; but I fear I shall
only confirm my strong suspicions that he is a murderer. O God! O God!
Why did he not die with his sainted mother! Far better would that have
been. It is a hard thing, gentlemen--it is a very hard thing; but if
this boy of mine does not surrender himself to the hands of justice
to-morrow, I shall--I shall--myself denounce him to the--"

The afflicted man, overcome with the terrible conflict between a sense
of public duty, and a lingering, inextinguishable parental affection,
fainted and fell into the arms of Marcus, who sprang to catch him.

While he was still insensible, the lieutenant of police, and the boy
Bog, slipped out of the room, and started off on a search for Myndert
Van Quintem, jr.

CHAPTER VI.

WHAT PAPER, TYPES, AND INK CAN DO.

When Marcus and his counsel, accompanied by the faithful lieutenant of
police, arrived in a close carriage at the scene of the inquest, at the
hour of adjournment next morning, they saw a convincing illustration of
the power of paper, types, and ink.

The morning journals, with whole leaded pages of evidence, and new
diagrams of the house and fatal room; and the enterprising illustrated
weekly, with portraits of the deceased, the prisoner, his counsel,
Tiffles, Patching (great hat and all), Patty Minford, the coroner, the
foreman of the jury, a full-page design of the murder, as it was
supposed to have taken place, representing the infuriate Wilkeson, club
in hand, standing over the prostrate body of the inventor, from whose
forehead the gore was pouring in torrents--all these delightful,
provocatives of sensation had done their full and perfect work.

At that moment, Marcus Wilkeson was known to the world of readers in New
York and the whole country round about, as the murderer of
Eliphalet Minford.

On the second morning of the inquest an immense crowd of people were
assembled in front of the house. They had been collecting since five
A.M., when a party of six Jerseymen, having sold off their stock of
nocturnal cabbages at Washington Market, had taken position of vantage
before the house, from which they and their wagons were afterward
dislodged with great effort by a squad of police. Some butcher boys,
also returning from their night's work at market, were next on the
ground, and selected adjacent awning posts and trees, as good points of
observation. Mechanics