Page:Love Insurance - Earl Biggers (1914).djvu/346

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THE SHORTEST WAY HOME
315

have a drink. Do you mean to say you didn't know Jenkins here was faking?"

"Of course I didn't," said Trimmer. He sat down on the extreme edge of a chair, as one who proposed to rise soon. "All this has got me going. I never went round in royal circles before, and I'm dizzy. I suppose you're the real Lord Harrowby?"

"To be quite correct, I am. Don't you believe it?"

"I can believe anything—when I look at him," said Trimmer, indicating the pitiable ex-claimant to the title. "Say, who is this Jenkins we hear so much about?"

"Jenkins was the son of my father's valet," George Harrowby explained. "He came to America with me. We parted suddenly on a ranch in southern Arizona."

"Everybody said you was dead," persisted Jenkins, as one who could not lose sight of that fact.

"Yes? And they gave you my letters and belongings, eh? So you thought you'd pose as me?"

"Yes, sir," confessed Jenkins humbly.

Mr. Trimmer slid farther back into his chair.