"Well, Phipps, what do you want?"

"Nothing, sir," and Phipps smiled.

"Very well; help yourself."

"Thank you, sir," and Phipps rubbed his hands.

"How are you getting along in New York, Phipps?"

"Very well, sir."

"Big thing to be round with the General, isn't it? It's a touch above Sevenoaks, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

"Get enough to eat down-stairs?"

"Plenty."

"Good clothes to wear?"

"Very good," and Phipps looked down upon his toilet with great satisfaction.

"Stolen mostly from the General, eh?"

Phipps giggled.

"That's all; you can go. I only wanted to see if you were in the house, and well taken care of."

Phipps started to go. "By the way, Phipps, have you a good memory?--first-rate memory?"

"Yes, sir."

"Can you remember everything that happened, a--say, six years ago?"

"I can try," said Phipps, with an intelligent glance into Mr. Belcher's eyes.

"Do you remember a day, about six years ago, when Paul Benedict came into my house at Sevenoaks, with Nicholas Johnson and James Ramsey, and they all signed a paper together?"

"Very well," replied Phipps.

"And do you remember that I said to you, after they were gone, that that paper gave me all of Benedict's patent rights?"

Phipps looked up at the ceiling, and then said:

"Yes, sir, and I remember that I said, 'It will make you very rich, won't it, Mr. Belcher?'"

"And what did I reply to you?"

"You said, 'That remains to be seen.'"

"All right. Do you suppose you should know that paper if you were to see it?"

"I think I should--after I'd seen it once."

"Well, there it is--suppose you take a look at it."

"I remember it by two blots in the corner, and the red lines down the side."

"You didn't write your own name, did you?"

"It seems to me I did."

"Suppose you examine the paper, under James Ramsey's name, and see whether yours is there."

Mr. Felcher walked to his gla.s.s, turning his back upon Phipps. The latter sat down, and wrote his name upon the spot thus blindly suggested.

"It is here, sir."

"Ah! So you have found it! You distinctly remember writing it on that occasion, and can swear to it, and to the signatures of the others?"

"Oh yes, sir."

"And all this was done in my library, wasn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"How did you happen to be there when these other men were there?"

"You called me in, sir."

"All right! You never smoke, Phipps?"

"Never in the stable, sir."

"Well, lay these cigars away where you have laid the rest of 'em, and go to bed."

Phipps took the costly bundle of cigars that was handed to him, carried them by habit to his nose, said "Thank you, sir," and went off down the stairs, felicitating himself on the ease with which he had won so choice a treasure.

The effect of Phipps' signature on Mr. Belcher's mind was a curious ill.u.s.tration of the self-deceptions in which a human heart may indulge.

Companionship in crime, the sharing of responsibility, the fact that the paper was to have been signed at the time it was drawn, and would have been signed but for the accident of Benedict's insanity; the fact that he had paid moneys with the expectation of securing a t.i.tle to the inventions he was using--all these gave to the paper an air of genuineness which surprised even Mr. Belcher himself.

When known evil seems absolutely good to a man, and conscious falsehood takes on the semblance and the authority of truth, the Devil has him fast.

CHAPTER XX.