s, I do now. You got to know all about it, and you're an impostor;
that's what you are!"

"Oh, Jerry, you always were a fool!" cried Dick, angrily. "Don't you
see that it was the poor fellow they found--the drowning boy I tried to
save?"

"Then you didn't try to drown yourself, sir?"

"Drown myself! Was I likely to do such a thing? Wasn't it enough that
I ran away, like the cowardly fool I was?"

"Then you ain't never been dead at all, then, sir?"

"Absurd!"

"And they buried the wrong man?"

"Good Heavens! what a position, Jerry! Yes," cried Dick, startled now
by the complications rising before his eyes.

"And you really are alive and hearty, and--how you've growed, and--and--
why, of course, it is! Pay you back the money--S'Richard, why I'd--oh,
my lad, my lad--I--I--I--oh, what a fool I am!"

Fool or no, Jerry Brigley broke down, and sat holding on by his
companion's hands sobbing for some moments before he uttered a loud
gulp, and then seemed relieved.

Meanwhile Dick sat staring straight before him, almost unconscious of
poor Jerry's acts. The revelation he had heard was paralysing. It was
horrible to think of; and, moment by moment, he began to realise how
difficult it would be to convince people of his identity when he went
back to claim his own.

He had just come to the conclusion that there must be an end to his
masquerading now, when Jerry recovered himself sufficiently to demand a
full account of how he had escaped from the flood.

This had to be given, and then Dick cried bitterly--

"Then my cousin did not die, after all?"

"Him? Die? Not, he, sir. He wouldn't, die a bit. He allus was a base
deceiver of a fellow--beggin' your pardon, sir."

"And I frightened myself into that folly for nothing!"

"Well, he was bad, sir, certainly; and the doctors thought so, too. But
he allus falls on his feet, sir. I don't. Nice mess I made of it,
sir!"

"Ah! How came you to enlist, Jerry?" said Dick, forcing himself to take
some interest in his old servant.

"How came I to 'list, sir? Why, all along o' him. I got in such a mess
I had to leave Mr Draycott's."

"How, Jerry? Why?"

"Got wild, sir. I'd been idgit enough to think as I could make a lot o'
money with my savings by putting 'em on hosses, and so soon as I did,
sir, they wouldn't win a bit; and, from going to the hosses, I went next
to the dogs; and then I was in such a state that there was no chance for
me at all; and