In which Jim gets married, the new hotel receives its mistress, and Benedict confers a power of attorney CHAPTER XXIII. In which Mr. Belcher expresses his determination to become a "founder," but drops his noun in fear of a little verb of the same name CHAPTER XXIV. Wherein the General leaps the bounds of law, finds himself in a new world, and becomes the victim of his friends without knowing it CHAPTER XXV. In which the General goes through a great many trials, and meets at last the one he has so long anticipated CHAPTER XXVI. In which the case of "Benedict _vs._ Belcher" finds itself in court, an interesting question of identity is settled, and a mysterious disappearance takes place CHAPTER XXVII. In which Phipps is not to be found, and the General is called upon to do his own lying CHAPTER XXVIII. In which a heavenly witness appears who cannot be cross-examined, and before which the defense utterly breaks down CHAPTER XXIX. Wherein Mr. Belcher, having exhibited his dirty record, shows a clean pair of heels CHAPTER XXX. Which gives the history of an anniversary, presents a tableau, and drops the curtain CHAPTER I. WHICH TELLS ABOUT SEVENOAKS, AND HOW MISS BUTTERWORTH PASSED ONE OF HER EVENINGS. Everybody has seen Sevenoaks, or a hundred towns so much like it, in most particulars, that a description of any one of them would present it to the imagination--a town strung upon a stream, like beads upon a thread, or charms upon a chain. Sevenoaks was richer in chain than charms, for its abundant water-power was only partially used. It plunged, and roared, and played, and sparkled, because it had not half enough to do. It leaped down three or four cataracts in passing through the village; and, as it started from living springs far northward among the woods and mountains, it never failed in its supplies. Few of the people of Sevenoaks--thoughtless workers, mainly--either knew or cared whence it came, or whither it went. They knew it as "The Branch;" but Sevenoaks was so far from the trunk, down to which it sent its sap, and from which it received no direct return, that no significance was attached to its name. But it roared all day, and roared all night, summer and winter alike, and the sound became a part of the atmosphere. Resonance was one of the qualities of the oxygen which the people breathed, so that if, at any midnight moment, the roar had been suddenly hushed, they would have waked with a start and a sense of suffocation, and leaped from their beds.