my error that I travelled the whole journey to
convey those despatches to their destination."

"I know all about it," said he, in a frank, gay manner. "Doubleton told
me the whole story. You dined with him and pretended you were I don't
remember whom, and then you took old Mamma Keats off to Como and made
her believe you were Louis Philippe, and you made fierce love to your
pretty companion, who was fool enough to like you. By Jove! what a rig
you must have run! We have all laughed over it a score of times."

"If I knew who 'we' were, I am certain I should feel flattered by
any amusement I afforded them, notwithstanding how much more they are
indebted to fiction than fact regarding me. I never assumed to be Louis
Philippe, nor affected to be any person of distinction. A flighty old
lady was foolish enough to imagine me a prince of the Orleans family--"

"You,--a prince! Oh, this is too absurd!"

"I confess, sir, I cannot see the matter in this light. I presume the
mistake to be one by no means difficult to have occurred. Mrs. Keats has
seen a deal of life and the world--"

"Not so much as you fancy," broke he in. "She was a long time in
that private asylum up at Brompton, and then down in Staffordshire;
altogether, she must have passed five-and-twenty or thirty years in a
rather restricted circle."

"Mad! Was she mad?"

"Not what one would call mad, but queer. They were all queer. Hargrave,
the second brother, was the fellow that made that shindy in the
Mauritius, and our friend Shalley isn't a conjuror. And _we_ thought you
were larking the old lady, I assure you we did."

"'We' were once more mistaken, then," said I, sneer-ingly.

"We all said, too, at the time, that Doubleton had been 'let in.' He
gave you a good round sum for expenses on the road, did n't he, and you
sent it all back to him."

"Every shilling of it"

"So he told us, and that was what puzzled us more than all the rest. Why
did you give up the money?"

"Simply, sir, because it was not mine."

"Yes, yes, to be sure, I know that; but I mean, what suggested the
restitution?"

"Really, sir, your question leads me to suppose that the 'we' so often
referred to are not eminently remarkable for integrity."

"Like their neighbors, I take it,--neither better nor worse. But won't
you tell why you gave up the tin?"

"I should be hopeless of any attempt to explain my motives, sir; so pray
excuse me."

"You were right, at all events," said he,