ll got names like
Rhine wines--but I know the gang as a whole, and if I don't lift the
roof clean off their particular synagogue, then my name is mud."

Lord Plowden smiled. "I've always the greatest difficulty to remember
that you are an Englishman--a Londoner born," he declared pleasantly.
"You don't talk in the least like one. On shipboard I made sure you
were an American--a very characteristic one, I thought--of some curious
Western variety, you know. I never was more surprised in my life than
when you told me, the other day, that you only left England a few years
ago."

"Oh, hardly a 'few years'; more like fifteen," Thorpe corrected him. He
studied his companion's face with slow deliberation.

"I'm going to say something that you mustn't take amiss," he remarked,
after a little pause. "If you'd known that I was an Englishman, when
we first met, there on the steamer, I kind o' suspect that you and I'd
never have got much beyond a nodding acquaintance--and even that mostly
on my side. I don't mean that I intended to conceal anything--that is,
not specially--but I've often thought since that it was a mighty good
thing I did. Now isn't that true--that if you had taken me for one of
your own countrymen you'd have given me the cold shoulder?"

"I dare say there's a good deal in what you say," the other admitted,
gently enough, but without contrition. "Things naturally shape
themselves that way, rather, you know. If they didn't, why then the
whole position would become difficult. But you are an American, to all
intents and purposes."

"Oh, no--I never took any step towards getting naturalized," Thorpe
protested. "I always intended to come back here. Or no, I won't say
that--because most of the time I was dog-poor--and this isn't the place
for a poor man. But I always said to myself that if ever I pulled it
off--if I ever found my self a rich man--THEN I'd come piking across the
Atlantic as fast as triple-expansion engines would carry me."

The young man smiled again, with a whimsical gleam in his eye. "And you
ARE a rich man, now," he observed, after a momentary pause.

"We are both rich men," replied Thorpe, gravely.

He held up a dissuading hand, as the other would have spoken. "This is
how it seems to me the thing figures itself out: It can't be said that
your name on the Board, or the Marquis's either, was of much use so far
as the public were concerned. To tell the truth, I saw some time ago
that they wouldn