Mrs. Seeley and Antrim badgered the servant for further data and sank deeper into the mire of wonderment at each fresh rendering of her adventure; but Brant stood aside as one who rides upon his own train of thought. The burglar’s object defined, there was only the question of identity to be answered. Harding was a coward, and he was much too shrewd to defeat his own end and risk his neck for the sake of a bottle of brandy. Wherefore, Harding must have employed an emissary. But who could he find who was at once brave enough to take the risk and foolhardy enough to get drunk in the midst of it? No seasoned house-breaker, certainly; it was more like the hare-brained prank of a reckless boy; such a boy, for instance, as William Langford. Brant bided his time, and when Mrs. Seeley went above-stairs to view the scene of the invasion he lagged behind with Mary McCarthy. “You say he had on black clothes, Mary. Are you sure of that?” “’Deed I am that, sorr.” “Did you have time to notice the kind of a coat he wore?--how it was cut, I mean.” “I did that. It was as like to the wan ye’re wearing as two peas in a pod. On’y but I knowed ye’d gone down to breakfast, I might have been misdeluded intirely till I saw the oogly face av him.” Inasmuch as both garments had been cut by the same tailor from the same measurements, there was every reason for the similarity; but Brant did not know this, and he tallied his score and went on: “At first you said he had black hair, and just now you told Mrs. Seeley it was brown. Take time to think about it, and tell me which it was.” “’Deed, sorr, it was both--lastewise, it was that darrk it might be ayther wan.” “Was it long, or short?” “Nayther the wan nor the t’other; joosht betwixt and betune, like.” “Exactly.” Brant nodded assent. The answers came so readily, pointing step by step to the inevitable conclusion, that they drew out a leading question: “One more point now, Mary, and we have him. Pull yourself together and try to remember his face. He was a young fellow, wasn’t he?--smooth-faced and rather thin, with heavy eyebrows, a straight nose, and a mouth turned down a little at the corners?” “That’s it--that’s joosht him to the parin’ av a finger nail! ’Deed and ye might be readin’ aff from his photygraph, Misther Brant!” Brant asked no more questions. Slipping a dollar into the housemaid’s hand, he laid a finger on his lip. “Mum’s the word, Mary, and it will be a favour to me if you will let the thing die out as soon as it will. I know who it was, and it was only a bit of boy’s play, meant to frighten me instead of you. You will help me keep it quiet, won’t you?” “’Deed and I will, then. It’s a fine gentleman ye are, intirely, Misther Brant; and it’s never an intilligent wurrud will they get out o’ me at all at all forninst the b’y. But joosht to think av the impidence of the young spalpeen!”