"Why did he do that? Did he know who he was? Did he ever say anything to
you about his former life--his childhood--his recollections of France?"

"He was not a man to say much," answered Clubbe, himself no man to
repeat much.

Colville had been trying for some time to study the sailor's face,
quietly through his cigar smoke.

"Look here, Captain," he said, after a pause. "Let us understand each
other. There is a chance, just a chance, that we can prove this Loo
Barebone to be the man we think him, but we must all stand together. We
must be of one mind and one purpose. We four, Monsieur de Gemosac, you,
Barebone, and my humble self. I fancy--well, I fancy it may prove to be
worth our while."

"I am willing to do the best I can for Loo," was the reply.

"And I am willing to do the best I can for Monsieur de Gemosac, whose
heart is set on this affair. And," Colville added, with his frank laugh,
"let us hope that we may have our reward; for I am a poor man myself,
and do not like the prospect of a careful old age. I suppose, Captain,
that if a man were overburdened with wealth he would scarcely follow a
seafaring life, eh?"

"Then there is money in it?" inquired Clubbe, guardedly.

"Money," laughed the other. "Yes--there is money for all concerned, and
to spare."

Captain Clubbe had been born and bred among a people possessing little
wealth and leading a hard life, only to come to want in old age. It was
natural that this consideration should carry weight. He was anxious to
do his best for the boy who had been brought up as his own son. He could
think of nothing better than to secure him from want for the rest of
his days. There were many qualities in Loo Barebone which he did not
understand, for they were quite foreign to the qualities held to be
virtues in Farlingford; such as perseverance and method, a careful
economy, and a rigid common sense. Frenchman had brought these strange
ways into Farlingford when he was himself only a boy of ten, and they
had survived his own bringing up in some of the austerest houses in the
town, so vitally as to enable him to bequeath them almost unchastened to
his son.

As has been noted, Loo had easily lived down the prejudices of his
own generation against an un-English gaiety, and inconsequence almost
amounting to emotion. And nothing is, or was in the solid days before
these trumpet-blowing times, so unwelcome in British circles as emotion.

Frenchman had no doubt prepar