'According to your own statement you bribe a miserable mountebank to play a part in so hideous a fraud that I am conscious of a sensation of nausea when I think of it; and when with horrible fidelity the wretch has played his part, what do you do? Do you play your part? Lord, no! You're not that kind of man. Your one anxiety is to save your own leprous skin--double-dyed cur and coward that you are. He at least has trusted you; so you reward his faith by subjecting him to the most terrible death the mind can contemplate--you bury him alive. You have not even the courage of the common murderer. You crucify yourself for your own crime. See what a pallid, shrinking, stammering wretch you have become! Out! out! out! before I soil my hands by taking you by the throat, and throwing you into the street.' Mr. Smith didn't seem as if he was enjoying himself. As I came towards him he seemed to shrink into a smaller and smaller compass, as if I were an avenging spirit before whose anger he had perforce to dwindle into nothing. I was wondering if I should play the farce right through, and really deposit him in the gutter, when the advent of two new-comers created a diversion. They were my affectionate brother, Lord Reginald Sherrington, and a rather incongruous companion, in the shape of Mr. Augustus FitzHoward. Fitz kept a little in the rear--as if not altogether at his ease as to the sort of reception he might receive; but the mere fact of his presence was proof enough that if I wished to keep myself free from such intrusions in the future, mercy was a quality against which, for the present at any rate, my heart must be steeled. This was a case when the downfall of vice must be carried to its legitimate conclusion. So I gave Reggie the benefit of some candid criticisms on Mr. Smith. 'Reggie, you come at a convenient moment. You afford me an opportunity of closing, once for all, an incident of which I never wish to hear again. You see this nameless thing--this libel on our common manhood, whom, I am ashamed to reflect, I once regarded as my friend? With what sort of tale do you suppose he has been regaling me? He tells me that by the promise of a payment of one thousand pounds, he suborned some hard-driven wretch, who bore some real or imagined resemblance to myself, and induced him to feign death. Think of it! He persuaded the creature to simulate the greatest of all the mysteries, and to pretend to pass into the valley of the shadows. And when he lay in a coffin--actually in a coffin--think of it, ye gods!--waiting for this--this thing, to fulfil his part of the bargain, and release him, Mr. Howarth, deeming discretion to be the better part of honour, caused him to be fastened in his prison house and buried alive. What judgment would you pronounce upon so unique a gentleman?' 'Is this true?' 'Ask him. I tell you the story as I had it just now from his own lips.' 'Douglas, is this true?'