“It is--I am: but, my dear sir, do not let us fly off at a tangent to morality or philosophy; these have nothing to do with the present purpose. You have before you all the papers relative to this transaction. Now, will you do me the favour, the service, to look them over, and try whether you can make out _le mot d’énigme_? I shall not disturb you.” Lord Oldborough sat down at a small table by the fire, with a packet of letters and memorials beside him, and in a few minutes was completely absorbed in these, for he had acquired the power of turning his attention suddenly and entirely from one subject to another. Without reading the mass of Commissioner Falconer’s explanations and conjectures, or encumbering his understanding with all that Cunningham had collected, as if purposely to puzzle the cause, Mr. Percy examined first very carefully the original documents--then Lord Oldborough’s notes on the views and characters of the suspected persons, and the reasons of their several enmities or dissatisfaction. From the scale of probabilities, which he found had been with great skill calculated on these notes, he selected the principal names, and then tried with these, whether he could make out an idea that had struck him the moment he had heard of the Gassoc. He recollected the famous word Cabal, in the reign of Charles the Second, and he thought it possible that the cabalistical word Gassoc might be formed by a similar combination. But _Gassoc_ was no English word, was no word of any language. Upon close examination of the Tourville papers, he perceived that the commissioner had been right in one of his suggestions, that the _G_ had been written instead of a _C_: in some places it had been a _c_ turned into a _g_, and the writer seemed to be in doubt whether the word should be Gassoc or Cassoc. Assuming, therefore, that it was _Cassock_, Mr. Percy found the initials of six persons, who stood high in Lord Oldborough’s scale of probabilities: Chelsea--Arnold--Skreene--Skipworth--Oldfield--Coleman; and the last k, for which he hunted in vain a considerable time, was supplied by Kensington (one of the Duke of Greenwich’s titles), whose name had been scratched out of the list, since his reconciliation and connexion by marriage with Lord Oldborough, but who had certainly at one time been of the league of his lordship’s enemies. Every circumstance and date in the Tourville papers exactly agree with this explanation: the Cassock thus composed cleared up all difficulties; and passages, that were before dark and mysterious, were rendered by this reading perfectly intelligible. The interpretation, when once given, appeared so simple, that Lord Oldborough wondered how it was possible that it had not before occurred to his mind. His satisfaction was great--he was at this moment relieved from all danger of mistaking friend for foe; he felt that his enemies were in his power, and his triumph secure.