t to take
our colouring, in the form of a reflection from the colouring of other
people, he had been sent abroad, and had been passed on from one nation
to another, before there was time for any one colouring more than
another to settle itself on him firmly. As a consequence of this, he
had come back with so many different sides to his character, all more or
less jarring with each other, that he seemed to pass his life in a state
of perpetual contradiction with himself. He could be a busy man, and
a lazy man; cloudy in the head, and clear in the head; a model of
determination, and a spectacle of helplessness, all together. He had
his French side, and his German side, and his Italian side--the original
English foundation showing through, every now and then, as much as
to say, "Here I am, sorely transmogrified, as you see, but there's
something of me left at the bottom of him still." Miss Rachel used to
remark that the Italian side of him was uppermost, on those occasions
when he unexpectedly gave in, and asked you in his nice sweet-tempered
way to take his own responsibilities on your shoulders. You will do him
no injustice, I think, if you conclude that the Italian side of him was
uppermost now.

"Isn't it your business, sir," I asked, "to know what to do next? Surely
it can't be mine?"

Mr. Franklin didn't appear to see the force of my question--not being in
a position, at the time, to see anything but the sky over his head.

"I don't want to alarm my aunt without reason," he said. "And I don't
want to leave her without what may be a needful warning. If you were in
my place, Betteredge, tell me, in one word, what would you do?"

In one word, I told him: "Wait."

"With all my heart," says Mr. Franklin. "How long?"

I proceeded to explain myself.

"As I understand it, sir," I said, "somebody is bound to put this plaguy
Diamond into Miss Rachel's hands on her birthday--and you may as well
do it as another. Very good. This is the twenty-fifth of May, and the
birthday is on the twenty-first of June. We have got close on four weeks
before us. Let's wait and see what happens in that time; and let's warn
my lady, or not, as the circumstances direct us."

"Perfect, Betteredge, as far as it goes!" says Mr. Franklin. "But
between this and the birthday, what's to be done with the Diamond?"

"What your father did with it, to be sure, sir!" I answered. "Your
father put it in the safe keeping of a bank in London. You put in