a Catholic, he wrote and thanked her for the
information, and hoped the Blessed Maria would take care of her for
evermore, little dreaming that the "Black Maria" would one day take
particularly good care of himself.

So that he forgot the place of his birth, the seat of his ancestors,
the friends of his youth, the face, features, and form of his mother,
his education and religion, his brother officers in the regiment, the
regiment itself, and the position he occupied, thinking he had been a
private for fifteen days instead of a painstaking, studious, diligent
officer, who was beloved by his fellows. He had forgotten all his
neighbours, servants, dependants, as well as the family solicitor who
made his will and was appointed his executor. He forgot his life in
Paris, the village church of his ancestral seat--nay, the ancestral
seat itself--and the very road that led to it. He forgot his old
friend and historian, who swore he had never altered the least in
appearance since Roger left--historian and picture-cleaner to the
family. In short, there was not one single thing in the life of Roger
that he knew. He forgot what any but a born fool would remember while
he was in poverty and bankruptcy for a couple of hundred pounds; the
real Roger had written home on hearing of the death of his uncle, from
whom he derived his title and estates, saying, "Pray go to Messrs.
Glyn's and exchange my letter of credit for L2,000 for three years for
one for L3,000."

Imagine a man forgetting he had L3,000 a year and an estate in England
worth L30,000, and earning his bread in a slaughter-house and in the
Bush, borrowing money from a poor woman and running away with it.

But now another singular thing stamps this fraudulent impostor who
makes so many believe in him. He, alleged by his supporters to be Sir
Roger Tichborne, recollected all about a place that he had never been
to; people he had never heard of, far less seen; events that he could
_not_ know and which never happened to him, but did happen to Arthur
Orton. He knew Wapping well--every inch of it; Old Charles Orton, the
father of Arthur; Charles Orton the brother, the sisters, the people
who kept this shop and that; so that when on his return to England he
went to the Wapping seat of his ancestors instead of Ashford, he asked
all about them, and reminded them so faithfully of the little events
of Arthur's boyhood, and resembled that person so much in the face,
that they said, "W