I went
to South Africa.) We threw ourselves on the grass, near a small
mountain stream that descended among moss-clad boulders from the
steep woods above us. The Kentuckian flung himself at full length
on the sward, just in front of Charles. He had a strange head of
hair, very thick and shaggy. I don't know why, but, of a sudden, it
reminded me of the Mexican Seer, whom we had learned to remember as
Colonel Clay's first embodiment. At the same moment the same thought
seemed to run through Charles's head; for, strange to say, with
a quick impulse he leant forward and examined it. I saw Mrs.
Quackenboss draw back in wonder. The hair looked too thick and close
for nature. It ended abruptly, I now remembered, with a sharp line
on the forehead. Could this, too, be a wig? It seemed very probable.

Even as I thought that thought, Charles appeared to form a sudden
and resolute determination. With one lightning swoop he seized the
doctor's hair in his powerful hand, and tried to lift it off bodily.
He had made a bad guess. Next instant the doctor uttered a loud and
terrified howl of pain, while several of his hairs, root and all,
came out of his scalp in Charles's hand, leaving a few drops of
blood on the skin of the head in the place they were torn from.
There was no doubt at all it was not a wig, but the Kentuckian's
natural hirsute covering.

The scene that ensued I am powerless to describe. My pen is unequal
to it. The doctor arose, not so much angry as astonished, white and
incredulous. "What did you do that for, any way?" he asked, glaring
fiercely at my brother-in-law. Charles was all abject apology. He
began by profusely expressing his regret, and offering to make any
suitable reparation, monetary or otherwise. Then he revealed his
whole hand. He admitted that he was Sir Charles Vandrift, the famous
millionaire, and that he had suffered egregiously from the endless
machinations of a certain Colonel Clay, a machiavellian rogue,
who had hounded him relentlessly round the capitals of Europe. He
described in graphic detail how the impostor got himself up with
wigs and wax, so as to deceive even those who knew him intimately;
and then he threw himself on Dr. Quackenboss's mercy, as a man who
had been cruelly taken in so often that he could not help suspecting
the best of men falsely. Mrs. Quackenboss admitted it was natural to
have suspicions--"Especially," she said, with candour, "as you're
not the first to observe the no