"Well, never mind," rejoined Hopkins. "Don't worry. The chances of my deserting you are very slight. But to return to your question. I shall meet Barncastle in this way; I shall have a sonnet written in his praise by an intimate friend of mine, a poet of very high standing and little morality, which I shall sign with my own name, and have printed as though it were a clipping from some periodical. This clipping I will send to Lord Barncastle with a note telling him that I am an American admirer of his genius, the author of the sonnet, and have but one ambition, which I travelled from America to gratify--to meet him face to face." "Aha!" said the spirit. "An appeal to his vanity, eh?" "Precisely," said Toppleton. "It works every time." "And when you meet him?" "We shall see," rejoined Toppleton. "I have given up brag and bluster; but if Lord Barncastle of Burningford does not take an interest in Hopkins Toppleton after he has known him fifteen minutes, I'll go back home to New York, give up my law practice and become--" "What?" said the spirit as Hopkins hesitated. "A sister of charity," said Hopkins, gravely. CHAPTER XII. TOPPLETON MAKES A FAIR START. A FEW weeks later Toppleton was able to report progress to his invisible client. He had the sonnet to Barncastle of Burningford and was much pleased with it, because, in spite of the fact that it was two lines too long, he was confident that it would prove very fetching to the man to whom it was addressed. "You ought to take out those two extra lines, though," said the exile. "Barncastle is a great stickler for form, and he will be antagonized at once by your violation of the rules."