the cabman.

We have not for some time seen, or rather we have for some time made
believe not to recognize, the Hon. Thomas Cranley, whose acquaintance (a
very compromising one) we achieved early in this narrative.

Mr. Cranley, "with his own substantial private purpose sun-clear before
him" (as Mr. Carlyle would have said, in apologizing for some more
celebrated villain), had enticed Margaret from school. Nor had this
been, to a person of his experience and resources, a feat of very great
difficulty. When he had once learned, by the simplest and readiest
means, the nature of Maitland's telegram to Miss Marlett, his course had
been dear. The telegram which followed Maitland's, and in which Cranley
used Maitland's name, had entirely deceived Miss Marlett, as we have
seen. By the most obvious ruses he had prevented Maitland from following
his track to London. His housekeeper had entered the "engaged" carriage
at Westbourne Park, and shared, as far as the terminus, the compartment
previously occupied by himself and Margaret alone. Between Westbourne
Park and Paddington he had packed the notable bearskin coat in his
portmanteau. The consequence was, that at Paddington no one noticed
a gentleman in a bearskin coat, travelling alone with a young lady. A
gentleman in a light ulster, travelling with two ladies, by no means
answered to the description Maitland gave in his examination of the
porters. They, moreover, had paid but a divided attention to Maitland's
inquiries.

The success of Cranley's device was secured by its elementary
simplicity. A gentleman who, for any reason, wishes to obliterate his
trail, does wisely to wear some very notable, conspicuous, unmistakable
garb at one point of his progress. He then becomes, in the minds of
most who see him, "the man in the bearskin coat," or "the man in
the jack-boots," or "the man with the white hat." His identity is
practically merged in that of the coat, or the boots, or the hat; and
when he slips out of them, he seems to leave his personality behind, or
to pack it up in his portmanteau, or with his rugs. By acting on this
principle (which only requires to be stated to win the assent of pure
reason), Mr. Cranley had successfully lost himself and Margaret in
London.

With Margaret his task had been less difficult than it looked. She
recognized him as an acquaintance of her father's, and he represented
to her that he had been an officer of the man-of-war in which her fath