I had won all along the line. But I wasn't exhilarated. Fighting's fun; and in a certain kind of row I'm happiest. I can lay my hand on my heart and say I believe that I was born a fighting man. A forlorn hope and a smile to my mind go together. And it's when I'm facing fearful odds, not for the ashes of my fathers and the temples of my G.o.ds, but for amus.e.m.e.nt only, that I'm surest I'm alive.

Yet when those gentlemen retired one after the other, leaving me in possession of the field, I couldn't have bet sixpence that a gla.s.s of brandy wouldn't have acted as a pick-me-up. And when a man's reduced to alcoholic bracers there's something ails him somewhere.

The sc.r.a.p with Acrodato was good business, and the capture of his lordship's pen-slip was an unmitigated joy. Bluff; all bluff. An apt example of how conscience can knock out the toughest subjects. I had had reason to suspect the worst in that business down at Birmingham, but I had never got beyond suspicion. The accessories were invention--pure invention. If he had compelled me to produce that statement, or the other trifles of which I had so boldly boasted, I should have had to plead that a thief had broken in to steal; or that they had got themselves mislaid.

Therefore the capture of that bill was a pure delight.

What worried me was the character of the man whose shoes I occupied.

In San Francisco I realised that he was trash, but only in the halls of his fathers did it come home to me what trash he was. He couldn't have been long in the world when he concluded to travel, but he had been long enough to make his name, even after the lapse of fifteen years, stink in men's nostrils. Yes; and women's. It was hard that that man's reputation should be mine. It was because he was that kind of man that people--including my own brother--were so ready to conclude that I was Mr. Babbacombe--perceiving that the trick he had played was quite in keeping with his lordship's character. Figuring as the Marquis of Twickenham wasn't the soft snap I had hoped.

I felt that there wasn't a man or woman in the house, from old Gayer downward, who didn't despise me; who couldn't tell some pretty tale to my discredit. Foster regarded me as a mixture of clumsy rogue and cowardly fool. When I gave him to understand that that was not a point of view which I appreciated, although he gave no outward and visible smile, I knew that at the bottom of his heart he smiled. I could have kicked the man. But then if I had once started I should have had to kick so many.

As the days went on the Twickenham romance was in all the papers. Some of them made it quite a feature. I wished to goodness they wouldn't.

They showed how the Marquis had returned--after his family had supposed that he was dead, and had actually buried some one else instead of him. I'm not thin-skinned, but some of their comments made me squirm. The Head of the House of Twickenham could not occupy his proper place in the public eye, while the papers were suffered to print such things of him.

One morning I took a bundle of them down to Foster.

'Have you seen these papers?' I inquired.

'I've seen some of them.'

'Isn't it nice reading?'

'If I were your lordship I should pay no attention to what appears in the public prints.'

'Not when they leave me without a shred of character?'

'Your lordship's return is still a novelty. They may continue to make copy of it for a time. Presently they will cease to speak of you at all.'

'You have a pleasant way of putting things! Then, until they do choose to treat me with silent contempt, I'm to allow them to say that I cheat at cards, that I don't pay my debts, that I'm an evil liver of the lowest type, and, in fact, an all-round beast and blackguard.'

Foster eyed me with a curiosity which was distinctly the reverse of flattering.

'Your lordship will permit me to speak with that frankness which alone can be of service?'

'My good man, be as frank as you choose.'

'Your lordship has surely not forgotten that there were incidents in your youthful career which did not redound to the credit of your character.'

'But when it comes to stating that I was kicked--literally kicked!--down the steps of a club for cheating at cards!'

'It is not a savoury subject, but is that not what happened? I am not aware that your lordship offered any contradiction at the time, although a signed statement of what occurred was posted on the notice board of the club in question. If your lordship will take my very serious advice, you will endeavour to live down the recollection of these things, and not, by legal or other action, drag them into the public eye.'

How I writhed when I left my counsellor's presence. This was indeed to be a whipping boy. Also this was the result of not being a student of the British peerage. If I had known what kind of an ornament to it his lordship really was, I rather fancy the Marquis would have stayed away. That I am a sinner, the saints know well. I'll not say that I'd be aught else if I had the choice. But this man appeared to have committed all the sins for which I've no stomach. He was, before all else, an unmanly man. Nothing mean, it seemed, he had left undone. In none of his misdoings had he shown a spark of courage. Nor, so far as I could learn, had he once remained to face the music. He had lied and cheated, in all sorts of dirty fashions, blubbered and run away.

That was a nice character for a man who ever from his youth upward had been a fighter to find himself possessed of. I did wish he had been a sinner on some other lines. There are offences which a man, having committed, may, as Foster suggested, live down. But none of them seemed to have come his lordship's way. He had done the unforgivable, and unforgettable, things--the things whose memory load a man with ignominy long after he has rotted in his grave. One might as well talk of flying as of living them down. Even though he attained to the years of Methuselah, to the last hour of his life he'd be a pariah. Perhaps, after all, his lordship had done the wisest thing in going away. It was I who had been a fool in coming back.

The Marquis of Twickenham was a frost. The accidents of his position only made that fact the more notorious. Though he had a million in ready money, so huge a rent roll, lands and houses, decent folks would have none of him. It was not necessary for me to have become such a mangy knave if I desired to hobn.o.b with the other sort. Not a clean-smelling soul came near. But I had visits from various representatives of the sc.u.m of the earth, who thought, even after fifteen years, that they had a pull on me. Lord! how I enlightened them. They all, with one accord, were struck by certain developments in his lordship's character.

But I hadn't done this thing to convert the riff-raff, nor with any intention of conveying to their benighted intelligence the elementary fact that there's no fool like a certain kind of knave. I wasn't happy.

Better Mary, and the kids, and Little Olive Street, a hundred thousand times than this. The joke was when Foster, who saw how the shoe pinched, suggested I should marry. I thanked him kindly, and asked him, since he had gone so far, if he'd go a little further and name a lady.

'For instance, have you a daughter of your own?'

'My lord, I remain a bachelor.'

'Then who has a daughter, or a sister, who you think would suit?'

'Undoubtedly there are many such.'

'Of my own degree?'

'There are good women of all degrees.'

'Meaning that the good women of my own degree would probably decline.'

'My lord, if you will allow me to say so, I think you take too pessimistic a view of your own position. At first I thought your point of view too optimistic. Now you appear to have gone to the other extreme.'

'I didn't know then what I know now.'

'I don't understand.'

'Possibly not. You think me too pessimistic. Go on.'

'For one who has lived such a youth as your lordship it seems to me that one very desirable course is open.'

'Suicide?'

'No, my lord, not suicide.'

'Murder? To be of the slightest service it would have to be on a wholesale scale.'

'The course I would advise would be a new environment.'

'Meaning?'

'Let the past be past. Treat it as a closed book not to be reopened.

Cut it adrift. And let your lordship seek fresh acquaintances, and fresh a.s.sociations.'

'Without, I presume, making any reference to the contents of that Bluebeard's Chamber, and hoping to goodness that no one else will either.'

'There are, I am thankful to know, a large number of excellent people--excellent in every sense--who, whatever your past may have been, perceiving that it is your present intention to become a worthy member of society----'

'Who says it is?'

'I am not so dull as not to perceive that such is your intention; and I do so with the most heart-felt satisfaction.'