dversary only
consented to forego the action for false imprisonment on condition
that Charles inserted a printed apology in the Times, and paid him
five hundred pounds compensation for damage to character. So that
was the end of our well-planned attempt to arrest the swindler.

Not quite the end, however; for, of course, after this, the whole
affair got by degrees into the papers. Dr. Polperro, who was a
familiar person in literary and artistic society, as it turned out,
brought an action against the so-called expert who had declared
against the genuineness of his alleged Rembrandt, and convicted him
of the grossest ignorance and misstatement. Then paragraphs got
about. The World showed us up in a sarcastic article; and Truth,
which has always been terribly severe upon Sir Charles and all the
other South Africans, had a pungent set of verses on "High Art in
Kimberley." By this means, as we suppose, the affair became known
to Colonel Clay himself; for a week or two later my brother-in-law
received a cheerful little note on scented paper from our persistent
sharper. It was couched in these terms:--

"Oh, you innocent infant!

"Bless your ingenuous little heart! And did it believe, then, it
had positively caught the redoubtable colonel? And had it ready a
nice little pinch of salt to put upon his tail? And is it true its
respected name is Sir Simple Simon? How heartily we have laughed,
White Heather and I, at your neat little ruses! It would pay you,
by the way, to take White Heather into your house for six months
to instruct you in the agreeable sport of amateur detectives. Your
charming naivete quite moves our envy. So you actually imagined a
man of my brains would condescend to anything so flat and stale as
the silly and threadbare Old Master deception! And this in the
so-called nineteenth century! O sancta simplicitas! When again
shall such infantile transparency be mine? When, ah, when? But never
mind, dear friend. Though you didn't catch me, we shall meet before
long at some delightful Philippi.

"Yours, with the profoundest respect and gratitude,

"ANTONIO HERRERA,

"Otherwise RICHARD PEPLOE BRABAZON."

Charles laid down the letter with a deep-drawn sigh. "Sey, my boy,"
he mused aloud, "no fortune on earth--not even mine--can go on
standing it. These perpetual drains begin really to terrify me. I
foresee the end. I shall die in a workhouse. What with the money he
robs me of when he _is_ Colonel Clay, a