ou think if I were really a boy of thirteen I should
know as much about you as I do? Do you want to know more? Ask, if you
dare! Shall I tell you how it was you left your army coach without going
up for examination? Will you have the story of your career in my old
friend Parkinson's counting-house, or the real reason of your trip to
New York, or what it was that made your father add that codicil, cutting
you off with a set of engravings of the 'Rake's Progress,' and a guinea
to pay for framing them? I can tell you all about it, if you care to
hear."

"No!" shrieked Paradine, "I won't listen. When you grow up, ask your
father to buy you a cheap Society journal. You're cut out for an editor
of one. It doesn't interest me."

"Do you believe my story or not?" asked Paul.

"I don't know. Who could believe it?" said the other sullenly. "How can
you possibly account for it?"

"Do you remember giving Maria a little sandal-wood box with a small
stone in it?" said Paul.

"I have some recollection of giving her something of that kind. A
curiosity, wasn't it?"

"I wish I had never seen it. That infernal stone, Paradine, has done all
this to me. Did no one tell you it was supposed to have any magic
power?"

"Why, now I think of it, that old black rascal, Bindabun Doss, did try
to humbug me with some such story; said it was believed to be a
talisman, but the secret was lost. I thought it was just his stingy way
of trying to make the rubbish out as something priceless, as it ought to
have been, considering all I did for the old ruffian."

"You told Maria it was a talisman. Bindabun what's-his-name was right.
It is a talisman of the deadliest sort. I'll soon convince you, if you
will only hear me out."

And then, in white-hot wrath and indignation, Mr. Bultitude began to
tell the story I have already attempted to sketch here, dwelling
bitterly on Dick's heartless selfishness and cruelty, and piteously on
his own incredible sufferings, while Uncle Marmaduke, lolling back in
his armchair with an attempt (which was soon abandoned) to retain a
smile of amused scepticism on his face, heard him out in complete
silence and with all due gravity.

Indeed, Paul's manner left him no room for further unbelief. His tale,
wild and improbable as it was, was too consistent and elaborate for any
schoolboy to have invented, and, besides, the imposture would have been
so entirely purposeless.

When his brother-in-law had come to the end of