it is that you 've left a princely house, with plenty of
servants and all the luxuries of life, to come and live in a shabby
corner of an obscure town and smoke penny cigars? There's the riddle I
want you to solve for me."

For some seconds Bramleigh's confusion and displeasure seemed to master
him completely, making all reply impossible; but at last he regained a
degree of calm, and with a voice slightly agitated, said, "I am sorry to
balk your very natural curiosity, Mr. Cutbill, but the matter on which
you seek to be informed is one strictly personal and private."

"That's exactly why I'm pushing for the explanation," resumed the other,
with the coolest imaginable manner. "If it was a public event I 'd have
no need to ask to be enlightened."

Bramleigh winced under this rejoinder, and a slight contortion of the
face showed what his self-control was costing him.

Cutbill, however, went on, "When they told me, at the Gresham, that
there was a man setting up a claim to your property, and that you
declared you 'd not live in the house, nor draw a shilling from the
estate, till you were well assured it was your own beyond dispute, my
answer was, 'No son of old Montague Bramleigh ever said that. Whatever
you may say of that family, they 're no fools.'"

"And is it with fools you would class the man who reasoned in this
fashion?" said Augustus, who tried to smile and seem indifferent as he
spoke.

"First of all, it's not reasoning at all; the man who began to doubt
whether he had a valid right to what he possessed might doubt whether he
had a right to his own name--whether his wife was his own, and what not.
Don't you see where all this would lead to? If I have to report whether
a new line is safe and fit to be opened for public traffic, I don't
sink shafts down to see if some hundred fathoms below there might be an
extinct volcano, or a stratum of unsound pudding-stone. I only want to
know that the rails will carry so many tons of merchandise. Do you see
my point?--do you take me, Bramleigh?"

"Mr. Cutbill," said Augustus, slowly, "on matters such as these you have
just alluded to there is no man's opinion I should prefer to yours,
but there are other questions on which I would rather rely upon my
own judgment. May I beg, therefore, that we should turn to some other
topic."

"It's true, then--the report was well-founded?" cried Cutbill, staring
in wild astonishment at the other's face.

"And if it were, sir," sa