annot go a step without a valet."

"I hear you repeat the word big," said I. "But it cannot be that he is
anything out of the way in stature."

"No," said the attorney. "About your height, as I guessed for the
tailors, and I see nothing wrong with the result. But, somehow, he
commands an atmosphere; he has a spacious manner; and he has kept up,
all through life, such a volume of racket about his personality, with
his chaises and his racers and his dicings, and I know not what--that
somehow he imposes! It seems, when the farce is done, and he locked in
Fleet prison--and nobody left but Buonaparte and Lord Wellington and the
Hetman Platoff to make a work about--the world will be in a comparison
quite tranquil. But this is beside the mark," he added, with an effort,
turning again from the window. "We are now under fire, Mr. Anne, as you
soldiers would say, and it is high time we should prepare to go into
action. He must not see you; that would be fatal. All that he knows at
present is that you resemble him, and that is much more than enough. If
it were possible, it would be well he should not know you were in the
house."

"Quite impossible, depend upon it," said I. "Some of the servants are
directly in his interests, perhaps in his pay: Dawson, for an example."

"My own idea!" cried Romaine. "And at least," he added, as the first of
the chaises drew up with a dash in front of the portico, "it is now too
late. Here he is."

We stood listening, with a strange anxiety, to the various noises that
awoke in the silent house: the sound of doors opening and closing, the
sound of feet near at hand and farther off. It was plain the arrival of
my cousin was a matter of moment, almost of parade, to the household.
And suddenly, out of this confused and distant bustle, a rapid and
light tread became distinguishable. We heard it come upstairs, draw near
along the corridor, pause at the door, and a stealthy and hasty rapping
succeeded.

"Mr. Anne--Mr. Anne, sir! Let me in!" said the voice of Rowley.

We admitted the lad, and locked the door again behind him.

"It's _him_, sir," he panted. "He've come."

"You mean the Viscount?" said I. "So we supposed. But come, Rowley--out
with the rest of it! You have more to tell us, or your face belies you!"

"Mr. Anne, I do," he said. "Mr. Romaine, sir, you're a friend of his,
ain't you?"

"Yes, George, I am a friend of his," said Romaine, and, to my great
surprise, laid his hand upon my