on as they were gone, and Charles had recovered breath
sufficiently to listen to rational conversation, I ventured to
observe, "This comes of being too sure! We made one mistake. We
took it for granted that because a man wears a wig, he _must_ be
an impostor--which does not necessarily follow. We forgot that not
Colonel Clays alone have false coverings to their heads, and that
wigs may sometimes be worn from motives of pure personal vanity.
In fact, we were again the slaves of preconceptions."

I looked at him pointedly. Charles rose before he replied. "Seymour
Wentworth," he said at last, gazing down upon me with lofty scorn,
"your moralising is ill-timed. It appears to me you entirely
misunderstand the position and duties of a private secretary!"

The oddest part of it all, however, was this--that Charles, being
convinced Forbes-Gaskell, though he wasn't Colonel Clay, had been
fraudulently salting the rocks with gold, with intent to deceive,
took no further notice of the alleged discoveries. The consequence
was that Forbes-Gaskell and Sir Adolphus went elsewhere with the
secret; and it was not till after Charles had sold the Seldon
Castle estate (which he did shortly afterward, the place having
somehow grown strangely distasteful to him) that the present
"Seldon Eldorados, Limited," were put upon the market by Lord
Craig-Ellachie, who purchased the place from him. Forbes-Gaskell,
as it happened, had reported to Craig-Ellachie that he had found
a lode of high-grade ore on an estate unnamed, which he would
particularise on promise of certain contingent claims to founder's
shares; and the old lord jumped at it. Charles sold at grouse-moor
prices; and the consequence is that the capital of the Eldorados
is yielding at present very fair returns, even after allowing for
expenses of promotion--while Charles has been done out of a good
thing in gold-mines!

But, remembering "the position and duties of a private secretary,"
I refrained from pointing out to him at the time that this loss was
due to a fixed idea--though as a matter of fact it depended upon
Charles's strange preconception that the man with the wig, whoever
he might be, was trying to diddle him.

IX

THE EPISODE OF THE JAPANNED DISPATCH-BOX

"Sey," my brother-in-law said next spring, "I'm sick and tired
of London! Let's shoulder our wallets at once, and I will to
some distant land, where no man doth me know."

"Mars or Mercury?" I inquired; "for,