Yes, the New Doctor entered; and yet the New Doctor had been in the room before, and was there still. We looked from one to the other in the utmost astonishment. There were two New Doctors! but just exactly alike; the same features, the same figure, the same quality of voice, the same cut of beard and mustache, and the same style of dress, down to the minutest particular! “Gentlemen,” continued the one who had been in the room before, “this is my brother, Henry Smith, the married man. I am Herbert Smith, the bachelor; and as you are now, I believe, satisfied that I did not rob old Jobbs, I may as well own at once that the _alibi_ by which I escaped was founded on a mistake. It was I who put the old farmer home to his gate, as a charitable action, and there left him, little thinking he was going to be so attacked immediately after by that scoundrel; and it was my brother who attended on Mrs Burns in her illness. It was the first time, I believe, that we ever ventured out at the same time in Mudford; but such a call was not to be disobeyed; and it was well for me that it happened as it did.” It may be supposed how much we were all astonished: but having heard and seen so much, we were prepared for almost anything; and we thought that we might now venture to take a glass of wine. We did so, and the wine, being very good, warmed our hearts, so that we felt more favourably disposed towards the Doctor, or Doctors, than a short time before we should have thought possible. “Now, gentlemen,” continued the one who had last spoken, “as we are about immediately to leave Mudford—for which Mudford, I fancy, will not mourn excessively—and should not wish to leave behind us a character altogether infamous, we have asked you, as being the most respectable and intelligent men in the place” (here we all bowed, and took another glass of wine), “to meet us here to-day, in order to hear a short explanation of this curious affair, which has given rise to such dreadful stories about us.