serious? though I've been to Brown and Co., and they hinted at the same thing."
"You did not get much change out of them, did you?"
"No, but I gathered that the man who impersonates my Uncle moves about within a radius of three hundred miles, more or less—and if he is to be found, I mean to have a good try. I told the old boys quite plainly, and they did not like it, no, not a little bit. I left them 'with their hackles up.' He paused abruptly, for Colonel Tallboys—who had been lounging in his chair, nursing a remarkably neat foot and ankle—now sat erect, stiff as a ramrod; his face had assumed an entirely different aspect, it wore the expression of the President of a district court martial, who listens to some vital and unexpected evidence.
"I give you my solemn word of honour, Geoffrey, that I have not the vaguest idea of what you are talking about—a man who impersonates your Uncle—did you say?"
"Oh, of course I forgot that you had not heard anything. My father never told me, till a few weeks before he died."
"Yes, yes, yes, go on," urged his listener impatiently.
"You will see all about it in this," now producing a pocket-book, from which he carefully extracted a thin flimsy letter. "Our lawyers at home know of this, so do Brown and Co., but no one else."
Colonel Tallboys resumed his spectacles, and slowly read and re-read the contents of a single sheet of paper. Here was the second startling episode, which had come before him that morning. As he studied the faded lines, he was thinking hard, and swiftly making up his mind. So Geoffrey the elder was alive, and Geoffrey the younger, in spite of his mandate, had come out to search for him—and thereby risk the loss of the whole of his income. Of course, such madness must be put a stop to: he would look after Mollie Mallender's boy, and save him from himself. With
