were agreed upon between him and Mr. Sheldon. The first and most
serious of these conditions was, that Captain Paget should be in nowise
enlightened as to his _protege's_ plans. This was a strong point with
George Sheldon. "I have no doubt Paget's a very good fellow," he said.
(It was his habit to call everybody a good fellow. He would have called
Nana Sahib a good fellow, and would have made some good-natured excuse
for any peccadilloes on the part of that potentate). "Paget's an
uncommonly agreeable man, you know; but he is not the man I should care
to trust with this kind of secret." Mr. Sheldon said this with a tone
that implied his willingness to trust Captain Paget with every other
kind of secret, from the contents of his japanned office-boxes to the
innermost mysteries of his soul.

"You see Paget is thick with my brother Phil," he resumed; "and
whenever I find a man thick with my relations, I make it a point to
keep clear of that man myself. Relations never have worked well in
harness, and never will work well in harness. It seems to be against
nature. Now Phil has a dim kind of idea of the game I want to play, in
a general way, but nothing more than a dim idea. He fancies I'm a fool,
and that I'm wasting my time and trouble. I mean him to stick to that
notion. For, you see, in a thing of this kind there's always a chance
of other people cutting in and spoiling a man's game. Of course, that
advertisement I read to you was seen by other men besides me, and may
have been taken up. My hope is that whoever has taken it up has gone in
for the female branch, and got himself snowed up under a heap of
documentary evidence about the Judsons. That's another reason why we
should put our trust in Matthew Haygarth. The Judson line is the
obvious line to follow, and there are very few who would think of
hunting up evidence for a hypothetical first marriage until they had
exhausted the Judsons. Now, I rely upon you to throw dust in Paget's
eyes, so that there may be no possibility of my brother getting wind of
our little scheme through him."

"I'll take care of that," answered Valentine; "he doesn't want me just
now. He's in very high feather, riding about in broughams and dining at
West-end taverns. He won't be sorry to get rid of me for a short time."
"But what'll be your excuse for leaving town? He'll be sure to want a
reason, you know."

"I'll invent an aunt at Ullerton, and tell him I'm going down to stop
with her."