ich the
mere rumour of money will unlock. He had never had such an idea of his
own importance before, and for a short time he deluded himself into the
belief that his popularity was due wholly and solely to his personal
merits.

Captain Oliphant fostered this delusion carefully.

"I hope you are enjoying yourself, my dear boy," he would say, after a
particularly festive evening.

"It's an excellent rule to make oneself agreeable in all circumstances.
I envy you your facility. You see how it is appreciated. It does an
old fogey like me good to see you enjoy yourself."

"It was a pleasant enough evening," said Roger, not quite without
misgivings on the subject, however.

"By the way, who was the man, older than the others, who talked loudest
and not always in the most classical English?"

The captain laughed pleasantly.

"No. I should have been better pleased if he had not been of our party.
He never was select, even in my young days, when I met him once or
twice. There used to be a saying among us that Fastnet, if he gave his
mind to it--"

"Fastnet!"

The cab was dark, and the boy's pale face was invisible to his guardian.
But the tone with which he caught at the name struck that good
gentleman.

"Yes. What about it?"

"Only," said Roger, after half a minute, and he spoke with an unusual
effort, "it seems a good name for him."

Alone in his room that night Roger came to himself. A week or two ago
he had hugged himself into the notion he was resolved to do his duty at
all costs and in spite of all discouragement. Here had he been wasting
a fortnight, forgetting duty, forgetting that he had a mission, posing
as the heir, and accepting the compliments of a lot of time-servers who,
now that he thought about them, valued him for nothing but his name and
expectations.

And one of these--the least desirable of the lot--had been this Fastnet,
the companion in profligacy of his lost brother, the one man, perhaps,
from whom he might hope to obtain a clue as to the fate or whereabouts
of the man whose rights he, Roger, was usurping!

He was tempted to telegraph to Armstrong to come to his help. But he
dismissed the thought. In this quest Armstrong was not with him. He
shrank from making a confidant of the captain. There was no one else to
help him. He must play the game single-handed or not at all.

Once more his courage failed. Ratman his brother, Fastnet his brother's
friend! At what a cost to