ng about the corners of Benjamin
Somers's mouth, and the half-triumphant, half-malicious gleam in
the eyes of the under-secretary. The man was evidently puzzled,
and somewhat alarmed. His looks seemed furtively to interrogate
me. Who was I? What did I want? Why had I come there to do him
an ill turn with his employers? What was it to me whether or no
he was absent without leave?

Seeing all this, and perhaps more irritated by it than the thing
deserved, I begged leave to detain the attention of the board for
a moment longer. Jelf plucked me impatiently by the sleeve.

"Better let the thing drop," he whispered. "The chairman's right
enough. You dreamt it; and the less said now the better."

I was not to be silenced, however, in this fashion. I had yet something
to say, and I would say it. It was to this effect: that dreams were
not usually productive of tangible results, and that I requested
to know in what way the chairman conceived I had evolved from my
dream so substantial and well-made a delusion as the cigar-case
which I had had the honor to place before him at the commencement
of our interview.

"The cigar-case, I admit, Mr. Langford," the chairman replied,
"is a very strong point in your evidence. It is your _only_ strong
point, however, and there is just a possibility that we may all
be misled by a mere accidental resemblance. Will you permit me
to see the case again?"

"It is unlikely," I said, as I handed it to him, "that any other
should bear precisely this monogram, and yet be in all other particulars
exactly similar."

The chairman examined it for a moment in silence, and then passed
it to Mr. Hunter. Mr. Hunter turned it over and over, and shook
his head.

"This is no mere resemblance," he said. "It is John Dwerrihouse's
cigar-case to a certainty. I remember it perfectly. I have seen
it a hundred times."

"I believe I may say the same," added the chairman. "Yet how account
for the way in which Mr. Langford asserts that it came into his
possession?"

"I can only repeat," I replied, "that I found it on the floor of
the carriage after Mr. Dwerrihouse had alighted. It was in leaning
out to look after him that I trod upon it; and it was in running
after him for the purpose of restoring it that I saw--or believed
I saw--Mr. Raikes standing aside with him in earnest conversation."

Again I felt Jonathan Jelf plucking at my sleeve.

"Look at Raikes," he whispered,--"look at Raikes!"

I turned to w