e'd oughter bin
wealthier. Ef the De Willoughbys was what they'd usedter be he'd be the
very feller as 'ud pay for things to be kept quiet. The De Willoughbys
was allers proud an' 'ristycratic, an' mighty high-falutin' 'bout their
women folk."

When the subject of the De Willoughby claim was broached he fell into
feverish excitement. The De Willoughbys had a chance in a hundred of
becoming richer than they had ever been. He took his treasure from its
hiding-place--sat turning it over, gnawing his finger-nails and breathing
fast. But treasure though he counted it, he gained no clue from it but
the one he had spoken of to Tom when he had cast his farewell remark to
him as he closed the door.

"Ef there'd hev been more," he said. "A name ain't much when there ain't
nothin' to tack on to it. It was curi's enough, but it'd hev to be
follered up an' found out. Ef he was only what he 'lowed to be--'tain't
nothin' to hide that a man's wife dies an' leaves a child. I don't
b'lieve thar wasn't nothin' to hide--but it'd hev to be _proved_--an'
proved plain. It's mighty aggravatin'."

One night, seeing a crowd pouring into a hall where a lecture was to be
delivered, he had lingered about the entrance until the carriage
containing the lecturer drove up. Here was something to be had for
nothing, at all events--he could have a look at the man who was making
such a name for himself. There must be something in a man who could
demand so much a night for talking to people. He managed to get a place
well to the front of the loitering crowd on the pavement.

The carriage-door was opened and a man got out.

"That ain't him," said a bystander. "That's Latimer. He's always with
him."

The lecturer descended immediately after his companion, but Stamps, who
was pushing past a man who had got in front of him, was displaying this
eagerness, not that he might see the hero of the hour, but that he might
look squarely at the friend who had slightly turned his face.

"Gosh!" ejaculated the little hoosier, a minute later. "I'd most swear to
him."

He was exasperatedly conscious that he could not quite have sworn to him.
The man he had seen nineteen years before had been dressed in clumsily
made homespun; he had worn his black hair long and his beard had been
unshaven. Nineteen years were nineteen years, and the garb and bearing of
civilisation would make a baffling change in any man previously seen
attired in homespun, and carrying himself as