tions of a certain Colonel Clay, a machiavellian rogue, who had hounded him relentlessly round the capitals of Europe. He described in graphic detail how the impostor got himself up with wigs and wax, so as to deceive even those who knew him intimately; and then he threw himself on Dr. Quackenboss's mercy, as a man who had been cruelly taken in so often that he could not help suspecting the best of men falsely. Mrs. Quackenboss admitted it was natural to have suspicions—'Especially,' she said, with candour, 'as you're not the first to observe the notable way Elihu's hair seems to originate from his forehead,' and she pulled it up to show us. But Elihu himself sulked on in the dumps: his dignity was offended. 'If you wanted to know,' he said, 'you might as well have asked me. Assault and battery is not the right way to test whether a citizen's hair is primitive or acquired.'
'It was an impulse,' Charles pleaded; 'an instinctive impulse!'
'Civilised man restrains his impulses,' the doctor answered. 'You have lived too long in South Africa, Mr. Porter—I mean, Sir Charles Vandrift, if that's the right way to address such a gentleman. You appear to have imbibed the habits and manners of the Kaffirs you lived among.'
For the next two days, I will really admit, Charles seemed more wretched than I could have believed it possible for him to be on somebody else's account. He positively grovelled. The fact was, he saw he had
