. I am indeed Shakespeare re-incarnated. My books
alone would prove it; they could have been dictated by no other mind.
But--look at this.'

He produced from an interior pocket a case of red morocco and handed
it to me. 'You,' he said, with a flattering emphasis upon the
pronoun, 'you are a man who can treat a serious matter seriously.
What do you think of that?'

The case contained a photograph, and the photograph represented the
head and shoulders of Mr. Blake and a bust of Shakespeare, placed
cheek by jowl. In the pointed beard and the wide-set eyes there were,
perhaps, the rudiments of something remotely like a likeness.

'Isn't that conclusive?' he demanded. 'Doesn't that place the fact
beyond the reach of question?'

'You've got more hair than you used to have,' said Chalks. 'I'm
talking of the front hair--your forehead ain't as high as it was. But
your back hair is all right enough.'

'You have put your finger on the one, the only, point of difference,'
assented Blake,

On our way home he took my arm, and pitched his voice in the key of
confidence. 'I am writing my autobiography, from my birth in Stratford
down to the present day. It will be in two parts; the interim when
people thought me dead, marking their separation. I was not dead; I
slept a dreamless sleep. Presently I shall sleep again; as men say,
die; then doubtless wake again. Life and death are but sleeping and
waking on a larger scale. Our little life is rounded with a sleep. It
is the swing of the pendulum, the revolution of the orb. Yes, I am
writing my autobiography. So little is known of the private history of
Shakespeare, conceive the boon it will be to mankind. I shall leave
the manuscripts to my executors, for them to publish after I have lain
down to my next long rest. Of special value will be the chapters
telling how I wrote the plays, settling disputed readings, closing all
controversy upon the sanity of Hamlet, and divulging the true
personality of Mr. W.H.'

He came into my room for a little visit before going to bed. There,
candle in hand, he gazed long and earnestly into my chimney-glass.

'Yes,' he sighed at last, 'it is solely in the quantity of my hair
that the resemblance fails.'

I understood now why he trained it back and plastered it down over his
scalp, as he did; at a rough glance, you might have got the impression
that the crown of his head was bald. I suppose he is the only man in
two hemispheres who finds the oppo