He was fond of telling us who he was. But it seemed that he was so many people that one got to feel that it didn't matter over-much which particular one of them he might happen to be. One night when we'd been having a little euchre, and he'd had a bottle or so of Bourbon, and lost, and wanted to play on the nod, and we wouldn't have it, he started clearing his mind of what he thought of us. And he told us he was an English nobleman; one of the greatest English noblemen; and that his yearly income was in the neighbourhood of a million dollars. As he'd been a Russian banker a little earlier in the evening, and an Australian squatter a bit ahead of that, and two or three other things besides, we didn't think his tale was good enough to play for owings on. If I'd taken interest enough in what he said I'd have asked him what nobleman he was. Then I might have been in front of Mr. Smith. Four years afterwards--six years ago--I married. It was all done in a week. So quick that I haven't got used to it yet. When I remember I'm married I brace myself, and a sort of shudder of wonder goes right through my bones. One promise I made to myself when I stood with her before the registrar--and to myself I always keep my word. That I'd keep her out of the mud in which I live, and move, and have my being. Whenever I've gone home to her I've left everything that wasn't clean outside. So that to this hour she's as simple as on the day on which I married her; and that's saying something; and she hasn't found me out. It's the queerest thing in the world to know that there's some one thinks you're good. This encounter with Mr. John Smith is likely to cause a complication. As my life was already such an intricate piece of machinery, it didn't seem as if there was room for many more complications. But when he would have it that I was the Marquis of Twickenham, my thoughts flew back to that master of lies who was so like me, and who would have it that he was an English nobleman. It was something to wake from a thirty days' sleep--with occasional intervals for exercise and refreshment--to find oneself a Marquis. That interview with Mr. Smith at the York did tickle me. So I was a Marquis; and as a Marquis I was to die, for his benefit--and a thousand pounds. I'm a fool; we're all fools; but I'm not the kind of fool who can't see things when they're shown him. When he began to talk like that, I saw the infinite possibilities of the position in a flash. I'd had a go at some pretty big things in my time, but never at anything within a good few miles of this. The first thing was to die, and then---- Why then, we'd see. And so probably would Mr. Smith.