‘Just so; I know no more about it being Shakespeare’s genuine signature than you do. How the thing came into my hands was this way. You know the Horn Tavern in Fleet Street, Dennis?’ ‘Well, of course. Did I not dine with you ten days ago there?’ ‘Nay; let us be accurate throughout. I dined with _you_,’ said the young man, smiling. ‘And that reminds me of what I had forgotten before; it was on that very day that I first met my friend. Did you notice an old gentleman with a flaxen wig dining by himself in the corner?—indeed, I know you did, for we remarked that it was rather early in the day for a man to be drinking port.’ ‘I remember your making the observation,’ answered Dennis; ‘but I cannot recall the gentleman; I did not notice him with any particularity.’ ‘Nor I. But it seems that he noticed _me_. I took my mid-day meal there the next day, and there he was again. We sat at adjoining tables, and he entered into conversation with me. His manner was at first a little stiff and reticent, like that of an old bachelor who lives alone; but something I said about Child’s bank seemed to attract his attention. He was not aware that the accounts for the sale of Dunkirk had been found among their papers, and seemed more astonished that I should know it. Again, it amazed him to find that I knew about Chaucer’s having beaten the Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street. Being ignorant, of course, of the set of people I have been brought up amongst here, it doubtless astonished him that so young a man should take any interest in such matters. He said he was but an indifferent antiquary himself, from an incurable habit of indolence, which had grown upon him during years of seclusion, but that his tastes had at one time lain in that direction; that he possessed a considerable collection of manuscripts bequeathed to him by a cousin, and that if I liked to look in upon him at his chambers in the Temple, I might perhaps find something worthy of my attention.