Arbuthnot," he said cheerfully, "you are early this morning!"
as if it was quite a usual thing for his friends to look in at six in
the morning.

"You are going down to the shop, Mr. Emblem?"

"Yes, certainly--to the shop. Pray come with me."

Arnold followed him.

"I have just remembered," said the old man, "that last night we did
not look on the floor. I will have one more search for the letter, and
then, if I cannot find it, I will write it all out--every word. There
is not much, to be sure, but the story is told without the names."

"Tell me the story, Mr. Emblem, while you remember it."

"All in good time, young man. Youth is impatient."

He drew up the blind and let in the morning light; then he began his
search for the letter on the floor, going on his hands and knees, and
peering under the table and chairs with a candle. At length he
desisted.

"I tied it up," he said, "with the parcel, with red tape. Very
well--we must do without it. Now, Mr. Arbuthnot, my plan is this.
First, I will dictate the letter. This will give you the outlines of
the story. Next, I will send you to--to my old customer, who can tell
you my son-in-law's real name. And then I will describe his
coat-of-arms. My memory was never so clear and good as I feel it
to-day. Strange that last night I seemed, for the moment, to forget
everything! Ha, ha! Ridiculous, wasn't it? I suppose--But there is no
accounting for these queer things. Perhaps I was disappointed to find
nothing in the packet. Do you think, Mr. Arbuthnot, that I--" Here he
began to tremble. "Do you think that I dreamed it all? Old men think
strange things. Perhaps--"

"Let us try to remember the letter, Mr. Emblem."

"Yes, yes--certainly--the letter. Why it went--ahem!--as follows--"

* * * * *

Arnold laid down the pen in despair. The poor old man was mad. He had
poured out the wildest farrago without sense, coherence, or story.

"So much for the letter, Mr. Arbuthnot." He was mad without doubt, yet
he knew Arnold, and knew, too, why he was in the house. "Ah, I knew it
would come back to me. Strange if it did not. Why I read that letter
once every quarter or so for eighteen years. It is a part of myself. I
could not forget it."

"And the name of your son-in-law's old friend?"

"Oh, yes, the name!"

He gave some name, which might have been the lost name, but as Mr.
Emblem changed it the next moment, and forgot it again the moment