"Well, I'll tell you. He will invite all the high panjandrums he knows to that dinner to meet me, and he will tell them that I am an original, and they'll all come, Chatford, just as they would flock to see a seven-humped camel or a dwarf eight feet high, and then I will have Lord Barncastle of Burningford just where I want him. I could browbeat him for weeks alone and never frighten him, but once I let him know that I know his secret, in the presence of his wife and a brilliant company, _he_ will be apprehensive, and, if I mistake not, will be more or less within my reach." "Lady Barncastle is no longer living," said the exile. "His household is presided over by his daughter." "Very well," said Hopkins. "We'll dazzle the daughter too." "Is this the way American lawyers do business generally?" sneered the exile. "No," returned Toppleton; "there is probably not another American lawyer who would take a case like yours. That's the one respect in which they resemble your English lawyers, but I'll tell you one thing. When they start in to do a thing they do it, unless their clients get too fresh, and then they stop _in medias res_." "I hope there is nothing personal in your remarks, Hopkins," said the exile, uneasily. "That all depends on you," retorted Hopkins. "Despite your croakings and fears, the first step we have taken has proven justifiable. We have accomplished what we set out to accomplish. I am invited to meet the fiend. Score one point for us. Now, when I advance a proposition for the scoring of a second point, you sneer. Well, sneer. I'll win the case for you, just to spite you. This despised note posted to Barncastle, I shall order a blue dress coat with brass buttons on it. I shall purchase, if it is to be found in London, one of those beaver hats on which the fur is knee deep, a red necktie, and a diamond stud. My trousers I shall have cut to fit the contour of my calves like a glove. I shall sport the largest silver watch to be found on the Strand, with a gold chain heavy enough to sustain a weight of five hundred pounds; in short, Chatford, you won't be able to distinguish me from one of Teniel's caricatures of Uncle Sam." "You won't be able to deceive Barncastle that way. He's seen New Yorkers before." "Barncastle doesn't know I'm a New Yorker, and he won't find it out. He thinks I'm from the Rocky Mountains, and he knows enough about geography to be aware that the Rocky Mountains aren't within two hours' walk of Manhattan Island. He knows that there is a vast difference between a London gentleman and a son of the soil of Yorkshire, and he doesn't know but what there are a million citizens of our great republic who go about dressed up in fantastic garments similar to those I shall wear to his dinner. If he is surprised, his surprise will add to his interest, and materially contribute to the pleasure of those whom he invites to see the animal the untamed poet of the Rockies. See?"