s voice, and his figure, and even his height. He can be stiff and
upright like a drilled soldier, or loose-jointed and shambling like a
tramp. He is a finished artist, and employs the very simplest means.
He could, I truly believe, deceive his wife or his mother, but he will
never again deceive me. I am not a specially observant man; still one
can make a shot at most things when driven to it, and I object to
being the subject of Dawson's ribaldry. If you will take my tip, you
will be able to spot him as readily as I do now."

"Good. I should love to score off Dawson. He is an aggravating beast."

"Study his ears," said I. "He cannot alter their chief characters. The
lobes of his ears are not loose, like yours or mine or those of most
men and women; his are attached to the back of his cheekbones. My
mother had lobes like those, so had the real Roger Tichborne; I
noticed Dawson's at once. Also at the top fold of his ears he has
rather a pronounced blob of flesh. This blob, more prominent in some
men than in others, is, I believe, a surviving relic of the sharp
point which adorned the ears of our animal ancestors. Dawson's
ancestor must have been a wolf or a bloodhound. Whenever now I have a
strange caller who is not far too tall or far too short to be Dawson,
if a stranger stops me in the street to ask for a direction, if a
porter at a station dashes up to help me with my bag, I go for his
ears. If the lobes are attached to the cheekbones and there is a
pronounced blob in the fold at the top, I address the man instantly as
Dawson, however impossibly unlike Dawson he may be. I have spotted him
twice now since he bowled me out, and he is frightfully savage--especially
as I won't tell him how the trick is done. He says that it is my duty to
tell him, and that he will compel me under some of his beloved Defence of
the Realm Regulations. But the rack could not force me to give away my
precious secret. Cherish it and use it. You will not tell, for you love
to mystify the ruffian as much as I do."

"I will watch for his ears when he next calls, which, I expect, will
be to-morrow. Thank you very much. I won't sneak."

"Remember that nothing else in the way of identification is of any
use, for I doubt if either of us has ever seen the real, undisguised
Dawson as he is known to God. We know a man whom we think is the
genuine article--but is he? Cary's description of him is most unlike
the man whom we see here. I expect that he h