my birth I had once given to Ysafflch was all
related circumstantially.

He tracked me as the "adventurer" through every event and incident of my
career,--ever aiming at fortune, ever failing; the hired spy of a party,
the corrupt partisan of the press,--a fellow, in fact, without family,
friends, or country, and just as bereft of every principle of honor.

Ysafflch went on to say that, having shown me Raper's letters and
memoranda on one occasion, I had, on reading them, originated the notion
of this suit, suggesting my own obscure birth and origin as sufficient
to defy all inquiry or investigation. He represented me as stating that
such actions were constantly brought, and as constantly successful;
and even where the best grounds of defence existed, they who were in
possession frequently preferred to compromise a claim rather than to
contest it in open litigation. Though the Count always endeavored to
screen himself behind his ignorance of English law and justice, he made
no scruple of avowing his own complicity in the scheme. He detailed
all the earliest steps of the venture,--where the family crest had
been obtained; by whom it had been 'engraved on my visiting-cards. He
mentioned, with strict accuracy, the very date I had first assumed
the name of Carew; he actually exhibited a letter written by me on the
evening before, and in which I signed myself "Paul Gervois." With these
matters of fact he mixed up other details, totally untrue,--such as a
mock certificate of my father's marriage at a small town in Normandy,
and which I had never seen nor heard of till that moment. He convulsed
the court with laughter by describing the way in which I used to
rehearse the part of heir and descendant of Walter Carew before him; and
after a vast variety of details, either wholly or partially untrue, he
produced my written promise to pay him an enormous sum, in the event of
the success of the present action. Truly had the lawyer said, "Such an
exposure was never before witnessed in a court of justice." And now
for above an hour did he continue to accumulate evidences of fraud and
deception,--in the allegations made by me before officials of the court;
affidavits sworn to; documents attested before consuls in Holland;
inaccuracies of expression; faults even of spelling,--not very difficult
to account for in one whose education and life for the most part had
been spent abroad,--were all quoted and adduced, as showing the actual
ins