'You're quite right, Douglas, my boy. I'm the long-lost Twickenham. Your recognition of me does you the greatest credit. Ask no questions, and you'll be surprised to find how, in certain directions, my character's developed. If the blessed lot of you were starving, I'm the man to fill your hungry bellies. How many of you are there? Six? What do you say to five thousand a year apiece; and, say, fifteen thousand down to clear off backwardations? You shall have my bond for it; my bond, my boy. It shall be a first charge on my estate. Ah! in the school of experience one learns what it is to be wise.' And then perhaps I might have winked. Yet I don't know. Under such circumstances with a man like Smith a wink might be a mistake. He's one of those who like to pretend that you believe, and that he believes, that t-h-e-f-t spells straight as a die. No winking for him. It turns up the right place in the dictionary with too much of a rush. Anyhow we might have arranged matters right along. I could have entered into the possession of my ancestral estates straight away, and we'd all have been as happy as the day was long. But that's where the trouble is; the mistakes you make at first, through ignorance, they're hard to repair. Sometimes bitter hard. As things were, the game was going to be a lot more difficult, both for me and Smith. Though Smith, just at present, didn't know. In the first place I should have to learn, with a quantity of surprise which was on so large a scale as to be altogether beyond the power of words to describe, how he'd been deluded by a two-faced scoundrel. I didn't die. 'No. The Marquis is alive. My dearest dears, I'm he! That wasn't the head of the house of Twickenham you saw sink to rest. Certainly not! The tears you shed--I didn't notice any, but there might have been a leakage--were all clean thrown away. The gentleman you have boxed up--well, I shouldn't be surprised if they had to open the coffin to find out who he was.' When they did find out I'd laugh. I wonder if Smith would join me. Anyhow he'd have the straight griffin that if he wasn't on my side trouble for him was only beginning. Recognise the rightful Marquis, debts would be paid, and there'd be a nice little yearly income. Be too nastily inquisitive, and it would be clearly shown to Mr. Smith that he was the kind of felon with whom the law is rarely gentle.