"Shan't tell you now," said Dick. "Keep shecret little longer."

"Do you know, my friend, that there's something very odd about you I've
noticed lately? Something that makes me almost fancy sometimes you're
not what you pretend to be."

Dick sat down heavily on one of the leather benches placed against the
wall.

"Eh, what d'you shay?" he gasped. "Shay tharragain."

"You look to me," said Marmaduke slowly, "like some one excellently made
up for the part of heavy father, without a notion how to play it. Dick,
you young dog, you see I know you! You can't take me in with all this.
You'd better tell me all about it."

Dick seemed almost sobered by this shock.

"You've found me out," he repeated dully. "Then it's all up. If you've
found me out, everybody elsh can find me out!"

"No, no; it's not so bad as that, my boy. I've better eyes than most
people, and then I had the privilege of knowing your excellent father
rather well once upon a time. You haven't studied his little
peculiarities closely enough; but you'll improve. By the way, where _is_
your excellent father all this time?"

"He's all right," said Dick, beginning to chuckle. "He-he. He's at
school, he is!"

"At school. You mean to say you've put him to school at his time of
life! He's rather old for that sort of thing, isn't he? They don't take
him on the ordinary terms, do they?"

"Ah," said Dick, "that'sh where it is. He isn't old, you see, now, to
look at."

"Not old to look at! Then how on earth---- I should like to know how you
managed all that. What have you been doing to the poor gentleman?"

"That'sh my affair," said Dick. "An' if I don' tell you you won' find
that out anyway!"

"There's only one way you could have done it," said Paradine, pretending
to hesitate. "It must have been done by some meddling with magic. Now
what---- Let me see--yes---- Surely the Stone I brought your poor mother
from India was given to me as a talisman of some sort? You can't have
been sharp enough to get hold of that!"

"How did you know?" cried Dick sharply. "Who told you?"

"I am right, then? Well, you are a clever fellow. I should like to know
how you did it, now?"

"Did it with the Shtone," said Dick, evidently discomposed by such
unexpected penetration, but unable to prevent a little natural
complacency. "All my own idea. No one helped me. It--it washn't sho bad
for me, wash it?"

"Bad! it was capital!" cried Marmaduke enthusiastically. "It was a
str