My heart almost stopped with terror; I had altogether forgotten that. I hastened to set the point at rest. “Oh, it _was_ the left,” I said, positively; “I know it because I remember so particularly thinking how odd it was that it _should_ be the left ear, and not the right!” I told myself this should be positively my last lie. “_Why_ odd?” asked Frank Travers, with his most offensive Socratic manner. “My dear fellow, I can’t tell you,” I said, impatiently; “everything seems odd when you come to think at all about it.” “Algernon,” said Lilian, later on, “will you tell Aunt Mary and Mr. Travers and--me how it was you came to find Bingo? Mr. Travers is quite anxious to hear all about it.” I could not very well refuse; I sat down and told the story, all my own way. I painted Blagg perhaps rather bigger and blacker than life, and described an exciting scene, in which I recognised Bingo by his collar in the streets, and claimed and bore him off then and there in spite of all opposition. I had the inexpressible pleasure of seeing Travers grinding his teeth with envy as I went on, and feeling Lilian’s soft, slender hand glide silently into mine as I told my tale in the twilight. All at once, just as I reached the climax, we heard the poodle barking furiously at the hedge which separated my garden from the road. “There’s a foreign-looking man staring over the hedge,” said Lilian; “Bingo always _did_ hate foreigners.” There certainly was a swarthy man there, and, though I had no reason for it then, somehow my heart died within me at the sight of him. “Don’t be alarmed, sir,” cried the colonel; “the dog won’t bite you--unless there’s a hole in the hedge anywhere.” The stranger took off his small straw hat with a sweep. “Ah, I am not afraid,” he said, and his accent proclaimed him a Frenchman; “he is not enrage at me. May I ask, it is pairmeet to speak viz Misterre Vezzered?” I felt I must deal with this person alone, for I feared the worst; and, asking them to excuse me, I went to the hedge and faced the Frenchman with the frightful calm of despair. He was a short, stout little man, with blue cheeks, sparkling black eyes, and a vivacious walnut-coloured countenance; he wore a short black alpaca coat, and a large white cravat, with an immense oval malachite brooch in the centre of it, which I mention because I found myself staring mechanically at it during the interview. “My name is Weatherhead,” I began with the bearing of a detected pickpocket. “Can I be of any service to you?” “Of a great service,” he said, emphatically; “you can restore to me ze poodle vich I see zere!” Nemesis had called at last in the shape of a rival claimant. I staggered for an instant; then I said, “Oh, I think you are under a mistake; that dog is not mine.” “I know it,” he said; “zere ‘as been leetle mistake, so if ze dog is not to you, you give him back to me, _hein_?”