of gentlemen when they do? Moreover, how am I to know
that this plaguy fellow _is_ actually related to me?--They say it is
a wise child knows its own father; and I cannot be expected wise
enough to know to a certainty my father's son.--So much for
relationship.--Then, as to full and unreserved confidence--why,
Harry, this is just as if I were to ask you to look at a watch, and
tell what it was o'clock, and you were to reply, that truly you
could not inform me, because you had not examined the springs, the
counter-balances, the wheels, and the whole internal machinery of
the little timepiece.--But the upshot of the whole is this. Harry
Jekyl, who is as sharp a fellow as any other, thinks he has his
friend Lord Etherington at a dead lock, and that he knows already so
much of the said noble lord's history as to oblige his lordship to
tell him the whole. And perhaps he not unreasonably concludes, that
the custody of a whole secret is more creditable, and probably more
lucrative, than that of a half one; and, in short,--he is resolved
to make the most of the cards in his hand. Another, mine honest
Harry, would take the trouble to recall to your mind past times and
circumstances, and conclude with expressing a humble opinion, that
if Harry Jekyl were asked _now_ to do any service for the noble lord
aforesaid, Harry had got his reward in his pocket aforehand. But I
do not argue thus, because I would rather be leagued with a friend
who assists me with a view to future profit, than from respect to
benefits already received. The first lies like the fox's scent when
on his last legs, increasing every moment; the other is a
back-scent, growing colder the longer you follow it, until at last
it becomes impossible to puzzle it out. I will, therefore, submit to
circumstances, and tell you the whole story, though somewhat
tedious, in hopes that I can conclude with such a trail as you will
open upon breast-high.

"Thus then it was.--Francis, fifth Earl of Etherington, and my
much-honoured father, was what is called a very eccentric man--that
is, he was neither a wise man nor a fool--had too much sense to walk
into a well, and yet in some of the furious fits which he was
visited with, I have seen him quite mad enough to throw any one
else into it.--Men said there was a lurking insanity--but it is an