I suppose if I were a sensitive man I should not be writing this history; or, at any rate, should not contemplate its perusal by strangers. For no man cares to be written down a liar; and many will conceal an incredible truth rather than run the risk. However, of these hyper-sensitive folk I am not one. For a good many years now I have practised at the bar; and, if that fact offers no guarantee of unimpeachable veracity it at least furnishes presumptive evidence of a fairly robust moral epidermis. I may not be believed; but the frankest scepticism will leave me undisturbed and unabashed.

My connection with the surprising events that I am about to record, began at the moment of my entering the shop of Mr. Reuben Solomon in Booksellers' Row. The "Row" has been swept away some years by a progressive County Council, and sorrowful ratepayers may look in through the palings and see very expensive wild flowers blooming—but not paying rates—upon its site. But in those days it was still standing, a happy huntingground for the bibliophile and a perennial joy to the urban artist; and Mr. Solomon's shop still gladdened the bookish eye with colossal black-letter folios, antique volumes in rusty calf and dainty, vellum-bound Elzevirs.

I found Mr. Solomon alone at the back of the shop dusting a range of shelves with a feather brush, and at once noticed a departure from his usual sprightly, genial manner. The worthy bookseller looked in decidedly low spirits.

"Good-morning, Mr. Solomon," I said cheerfully; "I hope I find you well this beautiful weather."

"Then you don't," he replied sourly.

"Indeed! I am sorry for that. What's the matter?" He laid down the feather brush and looked at me gloomily.

"Balmy," said he.

"Balmy?" I repeated.

"Yes, sir," he rejoined. "Balmy." And then, as I stared at him in astonishment, he added by way of elucidation: "on the crumpet."

I was exceedingly surprised. Solomon was a cultivated man—I might say a learned man—and was not addicted to these coarse colloquialisms. But, of course, I did not take him seriously. The diagnosis of insanity is not usually made by the lunatic himself.

"You're out of spirits this morning, Mr. Solomon," I said.

"Spirits be blowed!" said he. "If I'm not going off my blooming onion I'll—but there! it's no concern of yours, Mr. Mitchell. You've come to see those books that I wrote to you about. I've made them up into a parcel, as I thought you would like to take them home to look at at your leisure. There are five of them—"

He broke off abruptly, and, to my amazement, began to retreat down the shop in a most singular, stealthy manner, flattening himself against the wall as if he were squeezing past some bulky obstacle, and watching suspiciously the opposite range of bookshelves. When he was half-way down the shop, he turned and almost ran out; and on following him into the street, I found him earnestly examining the stock-in-trade of another bookseller some three doors farther up.

"You were saying, Mr. Solomon—" I began.

"Yes, about that parcel of books. It is on the shelf over the fireplace. Your name is written on it. Perhaps you wouldn't mind going in and taking it. I find the shop rather stuffy just at present."

This was certainly very queer behaviour and most unlike Solomon, who was in general the very pink of politeness. I was greatly puzzled; but, as I was somewhat pressed for time, I went into the shop, found my parcel and bustled off with it after a few hasty words to the bookseller.

As I had to call at the chambers of another barrister, I took the opportunity to run up to my own and leave the parcel there; and, as the books were of some value and were not mine, at present, I bestowed them in the upper part of my bureau, and, according to my invariable habit, turned the key. Then I went about my business.

From my friend's chambers I went across to the Appeal Court, in which I was that day engaged. I lunched with the Q.C. with whom I was associated, and when the court rose I went home with him to dine and talk over the case.

I remained with him until past eleven o'clock. When I emerged from his chambers in Paper Buildings, I perceived three persons—two men and a woman—sauntering slowly up towards Crown Office Row and looking about them with the leisurely air of sightseers. One of the men, who carried a violin-case, was apparently acting as showman, and, as I overtook them, I recognised him as a crony of mine, a law student named Leyland. I would have passed with a flourish of the hat, but he hailed me to stop.

"I say, Mitchell, can you tell us where it was that Lamb lived with his sister? Wasn't it Crown Office Row?"

"No; he was born in Crown Office Row, but the chambers where he and Mary Lamb lived were in Mitre Court Buildings."

"Then," said Leyland, addressing the lady, "you will have to come and see the place by daylight. The gate is shut now. We must get Mr. Mitchell to show us round the old place some day; he knows every stone of it and who lived in every house from the time of the Knights Templars downward. You wouldn't mind, Mitchell, would you? Miss Bonnington is rabid on historic associations."

"I should be proud and delighted," said I.

"It is a dear old place," said Miss Bonnington; "so peaceful and monastic. How I should love to live here! But I suppose there are no Eves in this Paradise."

"No," I answered. "It is given up to Adam and the serpent; especially the serpent."

Miss Bonnington laughed: and a very pretty, musical laugh it was, and very pleasant to listen to. Indeed, she impressed me as a very charming young lady; sweet-faced and soft-spoken, though quite self possessed.

"I didn't know you played the fiddle, Leyland," said I, glancing at the case in his hand.

"I don't," he replied. "This is Miss Bonnington's. I groan aloud on the 'cello, and Mr. Bonnington hammers the 'well-tempered clavier.' We've been having a little revival meeting in my chambers."

Thus we chatted as we strolled quietly up the untenanted walk. My appointment as future cicerone seemed to have served as an informal introduction, and when we came to the corner of Fig Tree Court, we halted to gossip awhile before saying good-night.

"What a very extraordinary old gentleman that was!" Miss Bonnington said suddenly. "And how inquisitively he looked at us."

We all turned to follow her gaze, but the old gentle man had already passed into the gloom of the narrow court and was little more than a bulky shadow.

"He's a deuce of a size," said Leyland. "Looks like a turtle walking upright."

"Yes," said Miss Bonnington, "but did you see how oddly he was dressed? He seemed to have a cocked hat and gaiters like a bishop's. Would he be a judge, do you think?"

I laughed at the idea of one of Her Majesty's judges going abroad in a cocked hat and gaiters, and delicately suggested an optical illusion.

"Well," said Leyland, "you'll be able to see for yourself, presently. He has turned into your entry. I expect he has come to offer you a brief."

"Then," said I, "I mustn't keep him waiting. Remember, that whenever you are disposed for a historic prowl round the Temple, I am at your service."

I shook hands with my newly-made friends and Leyland and betook myself to number 21, Fig Tree Court, on the second floor of which my chambers were situated. Slowly ascending the stone stairs, I speculated on the unknown visitor of quaint aspect, until I at length reached my own landing. But there was nobody waiting for me. Evidently Leyland had mistaken the entry, for mine were the only residential chambers in the building.

I let myself in with my key, shut the heavy "oak," and was about to take off my overcoat when my attention was arrested by a very strange circumstance.

There was a light in my sitting-room.

It was very singular and rather disturbing. I stood in the tiny lobby gazing at the streak of light—the door stood slightly ajar—and wondering if it could possibly be a burglar, though burglary was practically unknown in the Temple, and listening intently. There were no sounds of movement or, indeed, of any kind except a faint, continuous creak, curiously like the squeak of a quill pen. I stepped forward on tiptoe, softly pushed open the door, and looked into the room.

What I saw astonished me beyond words. Seated at my open bureau, writing rapidly with one of the quill pens which I, with an old-fashioned lawyer's conservatism, still use, was a man, apparently a stranger. As his back was turned to me I could not see what he was like, excepting that he was excessively bulky, and that he wore a grey wig. This latter fact puzzled me greatly. It is not customary for counsel to wear their wigs in chambers at midnight, and I could see, moreover, that he was not in his gown. It was very remarkable.

I watched him for awhile in speechless astonishment, a huge, unreal silhouette against the light of the single wax candle that I always keep in the antique silver candlestick on my bureau. He wrote on steadily with a loud chirping of the quill, turned the paper over and continued on the other side, and finally signed his name with an elaborate flourish, as I gathered from a series of more vehement squeaks. Then he laid the pen in the rack and helped himself to a pinch of snuff.

At this point I thought it expedient to attract his attention, and, to that end, coughed gently. But he took no notice. I coughed again a little louder, but still he appeared unaware of my presence. And then suddenly it flashed upon me that I must have got into the wrong chambers. I do not know why I thought this, for there was my own bureau with my own candlestick on it, there was the parcel of books at the stranger's elbow, and there was the high back of my Queen Anne chair cutting across the tail of his wig. But the misgiving was so strong that I must needs steal back into the lobby and softly open the outer door to satisfy myself.

No; there was no mistake. There was my own name "Mr. James Mitchell" painted legibly above the lintel. Having ascertained this, I reentered, closed the door rather noisily and strode across the lobby. But now another surprise awaited me.

The room was in darkness.

I stopped short expecting my visitor to come out. But he did not; nor was there any sound of movement from within. Rather nervously I struck a wax match and once more entered; and, as I looked round I uttered a gasp of amazement.

The room was empty.

I stood for some seconds staring with dropped jaw into the dim vacancy until the match burned my finger; when I dropped it and lit another in a mighty hurry. For the idea suddenly occurred to me that this unwieldy stranger must be a lunatic, and was perhaps at this moment lurking under the table. Very hastily I lit the gas and stepped back to the door. But a moment's investigation showed me that there was no one in hiding. The room was undeniably empty; and yet there was no exit save by the door at which I had entered. The affair was incomprehensible and beyond belief. Not only was the room empty; there was no sign of its having been entered. The bureau was shut, and when I stepped over to it and tried the flap, I found it locked as I had left it.

Needless to say, I searched the entire "set." I lit the gas in the lobby, the bedroom, the office and the little kitchen. I looked under the bed, into the wardrobe, and opened cupboards that would hardly have hidden a baby, much less the leviathan who had so amazingly vanished. And when I had proved beyond all doubt that there was no one in the chambers but myself, I went back to the sitting-room and gazed uncomfortably at the bureau. Of course there could be only one explanation. The fat man was an illusion; a figment of my own brain. There had really never been anyone in the place at all.

This was all very well as an explanation, but it was not particularly satisfactory. Hallucinations are awkward things. The brain that generates non existent fat men is not a sound brain. And the circumstantiality of the illusion only made it worse. For I could recall the fat man perfectly as he sat with the candlelight filtering through the edge of his wig; and now that I came to reflect on it, that wig was a very peculiar one. It was not a barrister's wig at all, nor a judge's, in fact it was not a horse-hair wig of any kind. It was softer and closer as if made of actual human hair.

Reflection on the subject was so disquieting that I determined to dismiss it from my mind; and, to that end, set about composing a letter which I had to send off to a solicitor in the morning. Unlocking and opening the flap of the bureau, I lit the candle, and, seating myself, took a sheet of paper from the stationery drawer and picked up a pen from the rack. As I turned over the opening paragraph of my proposed letter, and before I had raised the lid of the ink-stand, I tried the point of the pen, as is my habit, on my thumbnail. How can I express my astonishment when, on glancing at my nail after doing so, I perceived on it a little spot of wet ink!

I was thunderstruck. Here, at any rate, was a tangible fact; and what made it more conclusive was the circumstance that I had, that very morning, placed a new pen in the rack and thrown the old one away. This pen, therefore, now charged with wet ink, had never been used by me. It was an amazing affair. I sat or a quite considerable time reflecting on it, and might have reflected much longer, but that, happening to glance at the pen in my hand, I perceived that it was perfectly clean and unused. There was not a sign of ink on it, either wet or dry. Instinctively I held up my thumbnail and looked at it. But the spot of ink had vanished; or, at least, there was no spot there, and, of course, there had never been any spot. The wet ink, like the fat man, was an illusion; the product of some disordered state of my own brain.

It was excessively disturbing, but it was useless to puzzle over it and fret about it. No doubt the condition would pass, and meanwhile it were wiser to ignore it, and quietly attend to my health. Thus reflecting, I addressed myself to my letter, dipped my pen, wrote "Dear Sir," and plunged forthwith into the matter. I wrote on with the easy fluency of a man who is committing to paper that which is already in his mind, reached the bottom of the page, turned over, finished the letter in a couple more lines, and signed my name. Then I rose and fetched the letter-book from my copyingpress.

I had opened the book, and was about to take the brush from the water pot when my eye chanced to fail on the letter that I had just written; whereupon I fairly cried out with astonishment. For the name that I had signed was not my own name, nor was it even in my own handwriting; and, if anything could make the affair more astonishing, it was that I had written down a name that was entirely strange to me—Phineas Desborough. Who on earth was Phineas Desborough? and what was his confounded name doing at the foot of my letter?

I don't mind admitting that I was now considerably alarmed, and that the hand with which I picked up the precious document was far from a steady one. So completely was I overpowered that I was sensible of no further surprise on finding the matter of the epistle as strange as the signature, or on seeing the purple copying ink fade before my eyes into a spectral brown. My capacity for astonishment was exhausted. However, I reflected grimly, there could be no breach of confidence in reading my own letter, and accordingly I reseated myself and proceeded to run my eye, with far from pleasurable curiosity, over the faded writing to ascertain what I had been saying. I read the letter through with close attention and now quote its contents with a clear memory. They were as follows:

"16, Field Court, Gray's Inn, 11th April, 1785.

Madam,—Your esteemed letter of the 20th ultimo was duly received by me with profound gratification. Pray permit me respectfully to acknowledge the gracious condescension of your language towards one who has wrought much mischief and who now makes restitution only on the verge of the grave. It were better, I conceive, since your guardian must on no account be privy to our meeting, that you should not be seen at my chambers. You say that you will arrive in London on the evening of the 22nd instant, and will be free from the observation of your guardian on the following afternoon. That being so, I venture to give you the following directions: Walk from your lodging at the Saracen up Fleet Street on the south side and so through that arch of Temple Bar that abuts on Mr. Child's Bank. In that arch I shall take my stand at three of the clock punctually, and since the arch encloses but a strait passage, and my person (by reason of my habit of body and the dropsy with which it hath pleased God most justly to afflict me) will occupy the greater part thereof, you must needs pass me so close that I may readily place the book in your hands without being observed.

Conceal the book most carefully ('tis but a small one), and when you are quite private and secure from observation, carry a sharp penknife round the line that I have marked within the cover so as to cut fairly through the lining.

"I shall say no more, save that I have devised my entire property by will to your brother Jonathan, and that I entreat you to advise me when you have accomplished my directions and have the writing safely in your custody.

"I am, Madam,

Your Most obedient humble Servant, "Phineas Desborough.

"To Mrs. Susan Pierpoint." I laid the letter down and took a few turns up and down the room. Here, at least, was no illusion. The circumstantial detail and the names of the persons, entirely unknown to me, seemed to put that quite out of the question. The thing that troubled me most was the ink, the change in which admitted of no reasonable explanation. And, now that I came to think of it, the paper itself had seemed to undergo some kind of metamorphosis; a change that I had, as it were, noted subconsciously and passed over at the moment. To make sure that this was actually the case, I stepped over to the bureau and again took up the letter. And then I stood like a graven image with the sheet of paper in my hand and my eyes riveted on the opening words:

"Dear Sir,

"Bayste V. Jarvie,

"19, Fig Tree Court, Inner Temple, 18th May, 1901.

"Referring to our conversation of the 16th instant—"

I turned the page and looked on my signature "James Mitchell," of which the ink was still fresh and purple. So Phineas Desborough's letter, like the ink spot and the fat man, was after all an illusion.

But what an illusion! Even as I glanced over my own missive, couched in the characterless phraseology of today, the more rounded periods of the antique letter came fresh and word-perfect to my memory. There was something out of the common here. Either some outside agency had by some means gained access to my consciousness, or I was (to borrow Mr. Solomon's graceful euphemism) "going balmy on the crumpet." And neither alternative was an agreeable one to contemplate.

I placed my letter in an envelope, which I addressed but left open that I might examine it in the morning and make sure that it had undergone no fresh metamorphoses. Then I went to bed, to lie awake a full hour meditating on Phineas Desborough and Mistress Susan Pierpoint and wondering if there had ever been such persons or if they were merely the products of a disordered brain.

Among my acquaintances in the Temple at this period was, as I have already mentioned, a law student named Frank Leyland. I had a great regard for Leyland. In the first place, he was a fine handsome young fellow, and I have a partiality for good-looking people. Then he was fairly bursting with health and good spirits, qualities which, also, I appreciate highly. For your happy man is a benefactor to his species. Just as one may gather knowledge from the wise, so, by contact with the happy, may one improve one's spirits; a truth deserving of consideration by the middle-aged.

It was on the following Sunday night that I encountered Leyland, emerging with the other worshippers from the Temple Church, and—I regret to say—yawning prodigiously.

"Why do you go to church if it makes you yawn?" I asked.

"Free lesson in elocution," he replied. "There's no model like a goodclass parson. Actor's no good; too florid. Lawyer's too prosy. But a parson's the happy mean; a good style not hampered by matter. Are you going home?"

"Yes, I was going home; to Fig Tree Court, that is to say."

"Why not come and smoke a cigar with me?" Leyland suggested.

Why not? I was not specially yearning for a solitude which was apt to be disturbed by reminiscences of the late (or never) Phineas Desborough and suspicions of crumpetic unsoundness.

"I've just bought a Wheatley's Pepys," said Leyland; and that settled it. A minute later we were in his rather expensively appointed chambers in Tanfield Court with a pile of his newly-purchased books on the table.

We overhauled the treasures one by one, dipping into them and sampling passages, criticising illustrations and appraising bindings, until, at the bottom of the pile, we came on Goodeve's "Real Property."

"I am glad to see you are not neglecting your studies," I said, nodding at the forbidding volume, but not essaying to sample its contents.

"Oh, it's not professional enthusiasm," said Leyland. "I have a personal interest in property law at the moment. That's why I bought Goodeve; but now that I've got you here, I don't see why I shouldn't take counsel's opinion instead of muddling it out myself."

"Neither do I. It will probably save time. Pass the tobacco-jar and propound your riddle."

He pushed over the jar and a box of cigars. "The question is," said he, "what is the position of a man who threatens to cut his only son off with a shilling?"

"Well," I replied, "in my limited experience as a playgoer, his position is usually in the middle of the hearth-rug, with his legs a-straddle, and his hands under his coat-tails."

Leyland grinned cheerfully. "I mean his legal position," said he. "Can he do it?

"That is a very vague question to come from a half-fledged barrister. The question turns on the manner in which the property is held. If a man holds his property absolutely, he can dispose of it absolutely; if he holds it subject to conditions, he can only dispose of it in accordance with those conditions.

But why do you want to know?"

"Because my respected governor has expressed his intention— contingently—of putting the process into operation on me."

"Indeed! Would it be indiscreet to ask why?"

"Oh, the usual thing. My matrimonial projects are not acceptable."

"Your father objects to the lady, you mean?"

"No; he has never seen her. But he jibs at her father. You see, my governor is an old-fashioned country gentleman and he's nuts on his family. God knows why. There seem to have been untold generations of country bumpkins bearing our name, and, for some reason, he is proud of the fact, and considers us the salt of the earth. Now, the lady's father is a musician; he plays the organ and teaches music. Also he is not a millionaire. But the organ is the real trouble. My governor says he's not going to have his son marrying the daughter of a damned organ-grinder. So there you are." "It's not delicately put," I remarked.

"No, the gov's a rude old man when he's put out. But it's such confounded nonsense. The musician's is a noble profession, and, as to the organ, why it's the Zeus of the instrumental Olympus. Think of all the great men who have played the organ. There's Mozart and Bach, and Handel himself—"

"And Johnny Morgan," I interrupted; but by Leyland's feeble smile I saw that he had never heard the old song, and so missed the point of the joke.

"Well, the upshot of it is," Leyland concluded, "that the governor refuses his consent. He says if I marry the daughter I can apprentice myself to her father, and he will furnish me with one shilling sterling, and the price of a monkey.

"Why a monkey?" I asked.

"Oh, he seems to think that a monkey is an indispensable adjunct to organ playing. He's not musical, you know."

"Don't you think he will give way if he is treated judiciously?"

"No, I don't. He's as obstinate as a mule. And what's worse, he has snookered me for the time being by explaining his intentions by letter to my proposed papa-in-law. The result being that I am at present a rejected suitor."

"But, if you are rejected, your legal position is pointless."

"Oh, is it, by Jove!" said Leyland. "You don't think I agree to the rejection, do you? Because I don't. I tell you, Mitchell, I'm going to marry Kate Bonnington," and Leyland stuck out his chin with a distinct reminiscence of the parental mulishness.

"So I gathered from your manner the other evening; and I can't pretend to disapprove after seeing Miss Bonnington. But you say that relations between you are broken off for the present."

"Oh, no, they're not," said Leyland. "We are perfectly good friends still.

You see, I am taking lessons on the organ from Papa Bonnington."

"That savours of mere low cunning on your part. But go on."

"Well, Bonnington is quite willing, in the abstract, for me to marry his daughter, and Miss Kate is also agreeable—in the abstract—but they both refuse to be the cause of my being disinherited."

"And, of course," I added, "you couldn't cut much of a figure as a married man on one shilling sterling and the price of a monkey."

"Exactly. But if the old man can't disinherit me, I think matters could be arranged. I might, for instance, borrow enough on my expectations to start myself in some sort of business. Hence my inquiry as to the governor's powers."

"Which brings us back to the original question; does your father hold the property absolutely or conditionally?"

"I'm hanged if I know," said Leyland. "I suppose I must try to find out. What I do know is that there seems to be a strong suspicion of some sort of flaw in the title."

"Indeed! That sounds unpleasant; but it is also rather vague."

It's quite vague," said Leyland. "But I'd better tell you what I know about it, which is uncommonly little. The story is connected with an ancestor of ours named Anthony Leyland, who lived in the time of George the second. Anthony seems to have been mixed up in some Jacobite foolery, and, when that game fizzled out after the '45, he retired to the continent. The man who then held the Leyland property was a Whig and a loyalist, so, I suppose Anthony reckoned that if he kept out of sight, his peccadilloes would be forgotten by the time he was due to succeed to the estate. But, as a matter of fact, he never did succeed to it. He lived at Louvain, and died there before his innings was due. It seems that at Louvain he carried on some sort of business in partnership with a man named Bonnington." "Bonnington!" I exclaimed.

"Yes," laughed Leyland; "Bonnington. That is the cream of the joke, and that is what, I suspect, makes the old man so bitter. You'll hear why, presently.

"Well, at the time of his death, Anthony was a widower with two children, a daughter named Susan, ten years old, who lived in England with an aunt, and a son, Jonathan, who had been born in Louvain, and who was only two years old. Of this son and also of the daughter he made Bonnington the guardian; but it seems he also made some arrangements with the family lawyer, for this gentleman—whose name I forget—passed through Louvain a few days before Anthony's death, and had an interview with him. Also it is known that this lawyer subsequently acted for Anthony's son.

"Six months after Anthony's death the property fell in, and Bonnington, with the aid of the lawyer, managed to put Jonathan Leyland in possession, the management of affairs devolving on him (Bonnington) during Jonathan's minority. Well, it was all plain sailing so far. Jonathan was duly placed in possession, and in the course of time grew up to manhood or, at least, to the adult state, for he was never more than about half a man." "What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"Well, in the first place, he was a dwarf, and in the second, his left arm and leg were withered apparently from his infancy. There is a portrait of him at home that shows a hideous little goblin with a lop-sided face and a big crutch. He seems to have been a rare old cough-drop—a regular terror to the neighbourhood, with a pleasant habit of rousing up the servants with the end of his crutch. He was a malignant, ill-conditioned little devil. He used to beat his wife and harry his sister, and generally raise Cain in the house. The only person he could get on with was Bonnington; but Bonnington's son, Walter, who was about his own age, seems to have been a special mark for his malice; and when he reached his majority, he hoofed out the unlucky Walter to fend for himself." "How do you know all this?" I asked.

"His sister, Susan, kept a sort of diary and family chronicle which we have at home with a number of old letters. She married quite young, but became a widow a couple of years later, and came back to live under the

fraternal roof. And a gay old time she seems to have had." "But what about the flaw in the title?" I asked.

"I'm just coming to that. It seems that one fine day, Mistress Susan received a very queer letter from the lawyer—I can't remember the fellow's name, but it doesn't matter—hinting to her that there had been some hocuspocus about the property, and that both Bonnington and he were concerned in the fraud, what ever it was. I've seen the letter, and deuced vague it is; but he goes on to say that he has committed the facts for safe keeping to a volume of Horace or Virgil or some other Latin writer—I forget which—in his possession, and that he wants to hand the volume to her to be used in evidence after his death. The letter is endorsed on the back by Mistress Susan to this effect; that she did write to Mr.—whatever his name was— proposing to come to London and call on him, but he has never replied, or, which I rather suspect, he has answered, and his letter has been intercepted by my guardian (as I still call him) Mr. Bonnington. And there the matter ends. There's something queer, but we don't know what it is. We only know that Bonnington was in it; and that's what makes my governor so mad. He's frightfully sick to think that his title is shaky, and he loathes the name

Bonnington."

"But," I said, "it is only a chance similarity of name, I suppose?"

"Is it, by Jove?" said Leyland. "Not a bit. Kate's father is the direct descendant of the much-abused Walter. We know that, because the families have always kept more or less in touch. The enmity is my governor's personal hobby."

"Well, Leyland," I said, after a reflective pause, "it seems to me that your cue is to imitate the wisdom of the late Susan. Lie low and don't stir up mud. You don't want to upset the title to your own property."

A distinct recrudescence of the ancestral mulishness appeared in Leyland's face "I daresay you're right," he said, "but, all the same, I'd like to know what that old lawyer had to tell. By the way, what do you suppose he meant by 'committing the facts' to what seems to have been a printed book?"

"Who can say? He may have written a statement on the fly-leaf, or, more probably, have attached a cipher connected with the text. However, as I have said, you had better leave the title alone and try more persuasive methods with your father. Introduce him to Miss Bonnington, for instance.

That would probably settle the matter."

Leyland's face brightened at my appreciation of the maiden of his choice, and, dismissing the legal question, he said: "Speaking of Kate, you promised to take her and her father on a personally-conducted tour round the Temple. When can I ask them to come? Sunday's no good, you know, to an organist."

I considered my engagements for the week, and then replied: "Wednesday would do for me. Let them come early, and, when we have seen everything and traced the historical connections from Adam downwards, we will all repair to my chambers and drink tea. How will that do?"

Leyland thought it would do excellently, and, subject to his friends' agreement, the arrangement was made.

Need I hesitate to confess that my chambers in Fig Tree Court broke out, about this time, into unwonted sprightliness? Or to tell how the brief bag that I brought home on Wednesday received its lading at the pastrycook's?

Or how an iced cake was smuggled into the Temple in a wig-box? Or how the ancient silver teapot was secretly polished with a silk handkerchief and sundry "collector's pieces" came forth of a cabinet to grace the tea-table? Why not? I am but a musty bachelor to whose lair the visitations of fair maids are in good truth as angel's visits. And angels must be suitably entertained. To pretty Kate Bonnington I had taken an instant liking, and my friend Leyland's little romance engaged my warmest sympathy. Such a romance might have been my own but for—however, that is another story.

We met the tourists in state at the main entrance and carried them in procession through the ancient precincts. We talked of the Wars of the Roses, of the Knights Templars and of Twelfth Night. We raised the shades of Johnson and Goldsmith, of Burke and Sheridan. In Mitre Court Buildings we saw poor Charles and Mary Lamb go forth weeping, hand in hand, to the dreaded madhouse, and waited for them to "come again with rejoicing." We threw crumbs for the sparrows by the fountain and talked of Martin Chuzzlewit and Ruth Pinch (and here methought the fair Kate looked a shade conscious), and we looked into the church and to Mr. Bonnington's joy heard Father Smith's organ play. It was all very pleasant. The sky was sunny, the plane trees were golden, and when we turned into Fig Tree Court the shade and coolness were very grateful.

Under the influence of tea the historic and literary reminiscences revived. Then Leyland, who was something of a bibliophile, strolled over to my shelves, tea cup in hand, to browse among my books and terrify me for the safety of my precious wedgwood. Suddenly he turned—and nearly upset the cup.

"I saw Solomon this morning—the bookseller, I mean, not the other chap. He was asking after you. Said he'd sent you some books to look over."

"God bless me!" I exclaimed, "so he did, and I have never opened the parcel."

"Let's open it now and see what they are," said Leyland.

I produced the parcel, and, cutting the string, displayed the treasures: a "Treacle Bible," an ancient treatise on alchemy and magic, a couple of recent historical works and a chubby, vellum-bound duodecimo.

"What a dear little book!" Miss Bonnington ex claimed, pouncing on the latter, to our undissembled amusement. "So dainty and small and genteel. Oh, why can't people print and bind books like this now?"

Her question passed unanswered, for Leyland was already deep in the "Treacle Bible"—a mere curiosity which I, certainly, had no intention of keeping—and expounding its peculiarities to Mr. Bonnington. From the bible we passed on to the book of magic, over which we discussed the quaint beliefs of our ancestors. Suddenly Mr. Bonnington looked at his daughter and asked: "What is the matter, Kate?"

At the question, I looked up from the book. Miss Bonnington was sitting rigidly still with the little volume, clasped in both hands, resting in her lap. Her eyes were wide open and fixed, apparently, on the opposite wall.

"What is it Kate? "her father repeated; and, as she still appeared unconscious of the question, he leaned forward and lightly touched her hand; where upon she started violently and gazed around her like a suddenly-awakened sleeper.

"What an extraordinary thing!" she exclaimed.

"What is an extraordinary thing, my dear?" demanded Mr. Bonnington.

"Is it possible to dream without going to sleep?" she asked.

"If you have been dreaming and you haven't been to sleep, it must be," her father answered, "Have you?"

"It is astonishing," she said. "It must have been a dream, and yet it was so real, so vivid."

"What was, my dear? What was? Hey? Hm?" and in his impatience Mr. Bonnington leaned forward and tapped her knuckles.

"Be patient and I'll tell you. The dream began quite suddenly. This place vanished, and I was in a street, a crowded street filled with people in curious dresses such as one sees in old engravings. There was no pavement; only a row of posts between the road and the footway on which I was walking. The shops had funny little small-paned windows, like the shops in a country village, and each one had a sign hanging above the window or door. I walked quickly, and had the feeling of going somewhere for a definite purpose, and presently, when a kind of arched gate way came in sight, I seemed to have expected it. This gateway—I seem, even now, to recognise it; perhaps from having seen it in some picture—had three arches, a large one over the road, and two small ones for foot-passengers, and a large window over the middle arch. As I approached the gate to pass through I saw a man standing under the left-hand arch as if waiting for some one. He was an elderly man, very fat and very pale; and now that I come to think of him, he reminds me of that old gentleman who passed us that night in Fig Tree Court. I walked towards him with a very curious feeling of having expected to find him there, and, as I passed through the arch, brushing closely against him because he took up so much of the space, he put something into my hand.

I remember taking what he gave me as if I had expected it; and then you woke me up."

"Can't you recall what it was that he gave you?" Mr Bonnington asked.

"I have a sort of feeling that it was a book; but I expect that it is only because I was holding this book when I woke," and she held up the little duodecimo and laid it on the table.

As Kate Bonnington told her story, I listened with growing wonder, and, when she had finished, I fell into a reverie in which the eager questionings of her father and Frank Leyland came to me as sounds from an infinite distance. I roused only when Leyland, taking the little book carelessly from the table, glanced at it and addressed me.

"You remember, Mitchell, I was telling you about a book to which that old lawyer had committed certain facts. I thought it was Horace or Virgil. It wasn't, it was Sallust. This reminded me."

He held the little book towards me, and I read on the label "Sallustii Opera."

For a few moments I looked vacantly at the book; then, with eager expectation I took it from his hand and opened it; and somehow, it seemed in no wise strange, but perfectly natural and in order, that I should find on the fly-leaf, traced in faded, brown ink in a hand which I recognised, "Phineas Desborough, 1756."

I say that it seemed quite natural, but I must, nevertheless, have been really astounded for I presently became aware that my three friends were regarding me with uncommon curiosity.

"What is the matter, Mitchell?" asked Leyland. "You look as if you had seen a ghost too."

"Perhaps I have," was my reply; and I returned to the examination of the mysterious little volume. The fly-leaf bore no mark other than the name and date, but when I turned to the back cover I at once perceived—and again it seemed quite natural and reasonable—a thin, pale line of brown ruled round the margin of what my bookish eye instantly detected as a false end-paper. Without a word, I produced my penknife, and, opening it, laid the little book on the table. As I brought the point of the keen blade on to the faded line, Leyland sprang up and exclaimed:

"Good Lord! What is the man going to do now?" I made no reply, but carried the blade steadily along the line until it had traversed the four sides, separating a little panel of the end-paper. I lifted this off, and then, turning the book over, shook out two little sheets of very thin yellowish paper, each covered with pale brown, very minute writing.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Leyland. "Hidden bank notes, hey!" He picked up one of the little leaves, glanced at it, and then stood staring at me, as if thunderstruck.

"Good God, Mitchell," he said in a low voice. "Do you see what this is?"

He handed the little leaf to me, and I then saw that he had been looking at the back of the document, on which was written in ordinary-sized handwriting:

"The statement of Anthony Leyland, Gent, received by me from his hand on the 16th day of August, 1753, in a sealed packet which I afterwards opened.

"Phineas Desborough."

"This is a confidential document, Leyland," I said. "It concerns you, and may contain important family secrets."

"Secrets be hanged!" he replied. "There are no secrets between us. Read it out. Let us hear what Anthony Leyland had to say in 1753."

My legal instincts rose in revolt at the proposal, though I was devoured by curiosity. But Leyland was immovable, and, after a few ineffectual protests, I put on my spectacles and addressed myself to the decipherment of the microscopic script.

"Louvain,

"August the 3rd, 1753.

"My dearest Child,—I am writing these words (with a crow's-quillpen), lying on the bed whence I shall presently be borne to an alien grave, trusting that, by the Christian charity of some stranger, they shall come safely to your hand. I am dying in a strange land, with no friend near me, and no fellow-countryman save my partner, James Bonnington; to whose care, therefore, I must needs commit my little son, your brother Jonathan. But this I do with much misgiving, for I trust not Mr. Bonnington, who is a shrewd and worldly man; and who hath been most willing and even eager to undertake the duty, which makes me mistrust him the more. To be plain, I fear he may practise some fraud. For you are to know that this Bonnington is a widower (his wife died in the late sickness which carried off your dear mother), and hath one little son but a month or two older than your brother; a poor, mis-shapen wretch, having one arm and leg withered from his birth, on whom his father doteth—though I blame him not for that. But my fear is that he shall set this poor bantling in your brother's place; which he may readily do since he is your brother's guardian, and no one knoweth the children. Perchance I misjudge him; and God grant that it be so. Yet, for safety, I tell you this. That your brother is a lusty child, well-shapen and fair like his mother. That he hath a mole on his left cheek, and on his right breast a mother-mark of a red colour, about the bigness of a groat. By these you shall know the child; for Bonnington's son is sallow and black, and, as I have said, maimed from birth.

"Should that happen which I fear, and this letter reach you safely, keep it till you are of age, and then seek counsel of some wise and honest man.

"I commend you, dear child, to the good God, and so farewell.

"From your loving Father,

"Anthony Leyland."

"To Mistress Susan Leyland."

"August the 11th. Mr. Desborough, the attorney, is now in Louvain, and comes to me tomorrow, when I shall deliver this to his keeping to convey to you. A.

There was profound silence for a while after I had finished reading. Then Leyland asked:

"'What is the other paper, Mitchell?"

I picked up the paper, and, glancing at it, replied: "It is Desborough's statement. Shall I read it?

"Certainly," said Leyland, and accordingly I read aloud:

"I, Phineas Desborough, of 16, Field Court, Gray's Inn, Attorney at Law, do affirm and declare as follows:

"That I received the attached statement from Anthony Leyland, Gent. in a sealed packet: that I opened the packet and withheld the letter from Susan Leyland to whom I had promised to deliver it: that I did afterwards conspire with James Bonnington to substitute his son Walter for Jonathan the son of the said Anthony. That with my connivance and assistance the said Walter did enter into possession of the estate real and personal to which the said Jonathan was entitled which estate he doth continue to hold; that the said Walter did and still doth pass under the name and style of Jonathan Leyland and that the said Jonathan was and still is unlawfully and fraudulently caused to believe that his name is Walter Bonnington and that he is the son of the said James Bonnington.

"Given under my hand this 29th day of March, 1785.

"Phineas Desborough."

Signed in my presence,

"William Horrell, of 6 Hand Court, Holborn, Clerk."

I laid down the paper, and looked at my three friends, but for some time none of us spoke. Leyland was the first to break the silence; and his first words framed the inevitable question.

"How did you know those papers were in that book, Mitchell?"

There was no occasion for secrecy or reticence. My audience was not likely to be sceptical. In a few words, I told the story of my midnight visitor and the mysterious letter. And when the wonder of this had a little subsided, there came the further and equally inevitable question.

"By the light of those two statements, Mitchell, what do you say is the present position? It seems that my governor is playing cuckoo."

"The position is," said I, "that you are Frank Bonnington, and that Miss

Kate here is Kate Leyland."

"And would those papers be good evidence in a court of law?"

"Probably. But I must point out that after the lapse of a hundred and fifty years, it might prove very difficult to oust a tenant from possession. And your father has the sinews of war, and would probably fight to the last ditch."

"Now there you are quite wrong," said Leyland. "The governor is as obstinate as the devil, but he's an honest man, and generous, too. If you show him those papers and give him all the facts, I'll undertake that he'll march out, bag and baggage, without any action at law at all."

Here Mr. Bonnington rose and reached out for the papers. "If that is the case," said he, "I think we had better pop those two statements in the grate, and put a match to them." And he would have done it, but that I, with a lawyer's solicitude for documents, whisked them out of his reach and, clapping them in my pocket-book, buttoned my coat.

"Quite right, Mitchell," said Leyland. "I am sure you agree with me that justice must be done."

"I do. I agree most emphatically. But I must insist on its being done in a reasonable manner."

"As for instance—"

"Well, I understand that Mr. Bonnington, as I will still call him, has no son and only one daughter. Now supposing he enters an action against your father, and succeeds in ousting him; what is the result? The result is that Miss Kate Bonnington becomes transformed into Kate Leyland. But surely, my dear boy, the same result could be reached by a much shorter and less costly process."

Leyland stared at me for a few moments and then his face broke out into an appreciative grin. "By Jove, Mitchell," said he, "you ought to be Lord Chief Justice. Of course, that's the plan." He turned his gaze on Miss Kate (whose complexion had suddenly assimilated itself to that of the peony), and added:

"That is to say, if Miss Leyland would condescend to marry a poor, penniless devil like Frank Bonnington.'

That weighty question they subsequently settled to their mutual satisfaction and everyone else's. For the "governor" justified his son's estimate of his character by "climbing down" with the agility of an opossum. Thus, by a short and inexpensive procedure, Kate Bonnington became Kate Leyland—it happened the very day after I took silk—and thus, after a century and a half, did Phineas Desborough make restitution.