ogether!" The General seemed to be
enjoying his port, all the same.

Said Gwen:--"But he used to lick you, so you couldn't love him."

"Couldn't I? I was awfully fond of Phil. So was he of me. I expect Cain
was very fond of Abel. They loved each other like brothers. Not like
other people!"

"But Phil isn't a fair instance. Can't you do any better than Phil?
Never mind Cain and Abel."

"H'm--no, I can't! Phil's not a bad instance. It's longer ago--but the
same thing in principle. If I were to hear that Phil was really
resuscitated, and some other boy was buried by mistake for him, I should
... I should...." The General hung fire.

"What should you do? That's what I want to know.... Come now,
confess--it's not so easy to say, after all!"

"No--it's not easy. But it would depend on the way how. If it was like
the Day of Judgement, and he rose from the grave, as we are taught in
the Bible, just the same as he was buried.... Well--you know--it
wouldn't be fair play! _I_ should know _him_, though I expect I should
think him jolly small."

"But he wouldn't know you?"

"No. He would be saying to himself, who the dooce is this superannuated
old cock? And it would be no use my saying I was his little brother, or
he was my big one."

"But suppose it wasn't like the Day of Judgement at all, but real, like
my old ladies. Suppose he was another superannuated old cock! My old
ladies are superannuated old hens, I suppose."

"I suppose so. But I understand from what you tell me that they _have_
come to know one another again. They talk together and recall old times?
Isn't that so?"

"Oh dear yes, and each knows the other quite well by now. Only I believe
they are still quite bewildered about what has happened."

"Then I suppose it would be the same with me and my redivivus
brother--on the superannuated-old-cock theory, not the Day of Judgement
one."

"Yes--but I want you not to draw inferences from _them_, but to say what
you would feel ... of yourself ... out of your own head."

The General wanted time to think. The question required thought, and he
was taking it seriously. The Earl, seeing him thinking, and Gwen waiting
for the outcome, came round from his end of the table, and took the seat
the Countess had vacated. He ought to have been there before, but it
seemed as though Gwen's _escapade_ had thrown all formalities out of
gear. He was just in time for the General's conclusion:--"Give it up!
Heaven only knows wh