take me straight to those who have authority
to question me."

He did not move.

"You had best sit down again, Mr. Mallock. I do not say that I do not
believe you. But I will allow that I do not know what to think. You are
a very shrewd man, sir; and it truly is beyond my understanding that you
should have forgotten so completely this most vital matter. I wish to be
your friend; but I confess I do not understand. Oh! sit down, man!" he
cried suddenly. "Do not playact with me. Just answer my questions."

I sat down again. I saw that he was sincere and that indeed he was
puzzled; and my anger went.

"Well," I said, "I suppose it may be difficult. Let me tell you the
whole affair."

So I told him. I related the whole of my adventure in the inn, and how I
got the paper, and tried to read it, and could not: then, how I took it
to Hare Street and put it where he had described: then how I very nearly
had asked a Jesuit priest if he had any skill in cypher; and then how,
once more, it had all slipped my mind, and that, a long time having
elapsed, even when Rumbald became prominent again, even then I had not
remembered it.

"That is absolutely the whole tale," I said; "and I know no more than
the dead what it is all about. What is it all about, Mr. Chiffinch?"

He drew a breath and then expelled it again, and, at the same time stood
up, withdrawing his eyes from my face. I think it was then for the first
time that he put away his doubts; for I had got my wits back again and
could talk reasonably.

"Well," he said, "we had best be off at once, and see what they say."

"Where to?" asked I.

"Why to His Majesty's lodgings," he said. "I fetched him out to tell
him. Did you not see me?"

"His Majesty!" I cried.

"Why yes; I thought it best. Else it would have meant your arrest, Mr.
Mallock."

* * * * *

I must confess that my uneasiness came back--(which had left me just
now)--as I went with the page to the King's lodgings, more especially
when I saw again how the guards fell in behind us and followed us every
step of the way. It was very well to say that I "should have been
arrested" if such and such a thing had not happened: the truth was, I
was already under arrest, as I should soon have found if I had attempted
to run away. It seemed to me somewhat portentous too that His Majesty
was so ready to see us, instead of mocking at the whole tale at once.

Mr. Chiffinch said nothing to