side bonus you can pay me twenty-five
thousand or so when you come into the estate on your uncle's death."

The eminent lawyer, his calculating eye still on Garrison, then
proceeded with much forensic ability and virile imagination to lay the
full beauties of the "cinch" before him.

"But supposing the real nephew shows up?" asked Garrison hesitatingly,
after half an hour's discussion.

"Impossible. I am fully convinced he's dead. Possession is nine points
of the law, my son. If he should happen to turn up, which he won't, why,
you have only to brand him as a fraud. I'm a kind-hearted man, and I
merely wish Major Calvert to have the pleasure of killing fatted calf
for one instead of a burial. I'm sure the real nephew is dead. Anyway,
the search will be given up when you are found."

"But about identification?"

"Oh, the mark's enough, quite enough. You've never met your kin, but you
can have very sweet, childish recollections of having heard your mother
speak of them. I know enough of old Calvert to post you on the family.
You've lived North all your life. We'll fix up a nice respectable series
of events regarding how you came to be away in China somewhere, and thus
missed seeing the advertisement.

"We'll let my discovery of you stand as it is, only we'll substitute the
swimming-pool of the New York Athletic Club in lieu of the Battery. The
Battery wouldn't sound good form. Romanticism always makes truth more
palatable. Trust me to work things to a highly artistic and flawless
finish. I can procure any number of witnesses--at so much per head--who
have time and again distinctly heard your childish prattle regarding
dear Uncle and Aunty Calvert.

"I'll wire on that long-lost nephew has been found, and you can proceed
to lie right down in your ready-made bed of roses. There won't be any
thorns. Bit of a step up from municipal lodging-houses, eh?"

Garrison clenched his hands. His honor was in the last ditch. The great
question had come; not in the guise of a loaf of bread, but this. How
long his honor put up a fight he did not know, but the eminent lawyer
was apparently satisfied regarding the outcome, for he proceeded very
leisurely to read the morning paper, leaving Garrison to his thoughts.

And what thoughts they were! What excuses he made to himself--poor
hostages to a fast-crumbling honor! Only the exercise of a little
subterfuge and all this horrible present would be a past. No more
sleeping in the parks