Whalley took me to visit his adipose protégé in a street in Pimlico. I think it was called Bessborough Street; I recollect that it was a continuation of Tachbrook Street. Here “Sir Roger” had installed Miss Norrie Jordan, a member of the chorus at the Globe Theatre, in control of his domestic arrangements, “Lady Tichborne” being provided for elsewhere. This was quite characteristic of the Claimant. He had not the slightest affection for Miss Jordan, and appeared to feel uncomfortable in her presence. But it was the fashion for gentlemen of title to run “side-shows,” as they were called; and “Sir Roger” was determined to stand by his order, and show himself a man sensitive to the slightest movements of Society, however personally unpleasant to himself the experiments involved might be. My subsequent meetings with the fellow proved to me that the sum of his so-called accomplishments might be set down in a line or two. He had an unbounded capacity for swallowing gin-and-soda; he had a good eye and a steady hand as a pigeon-shot; and he possessed an unrivalled faculty for exploiting “mugs.” In dealing with possible subscribers to the Tichborne “stock,” it was a favourite ruse of his to ask the intended victim to try on the Claimant’s gloves. This trial proved that the hands of the Claimant were small, whereas those of Orton were _said_ to have been large. When the “unfortunate nobleman” went to Dartmoor to “languish” for a term of years, it was a great relief to the Press and an infinite advantage to the community at large. He had indeed proved himself the very Prince of Jokers, but his joke had begun to pall. CHAPTER XII ANSDELL’S AFTERNOONS JAMES ANSDELL was a retired Cape merchant. He was a genial, generous, and clever little man, and bore a somewhat striking facial resemblance to Livingstone the explorer. Why on earth James Ansdell, with a fine income and all the world open to him as an oblate spheroid of a pleasure-garden, should have selected Anderton’s Hotel in Fleet Street as the resort, of all others, to afford him the greatest amount of diversion, I have never been able to discover. But in the smoking-room of Anderton’s some five-and-twenty years ago Ansdell was to be found on every afternoon after lunch, surrounded by a little coterie of pressmen, Fleet Street nondescripts, and Cape cronies. He established himself as host of the table; and in those days that in itself was a passport to the less strenuously occupied of the journalists. Ansdell was always sure of a full company, and as he was not only a good talker, but a good listener, conversation for conversation’s sake was greatly encouraged, and time passed swiftly and agreeably enough over the Cape merchant’s coffees and whiskies and cigars.