ive years ago, and I run
down whenever the spirit moves me."

I sat silent, looking at him.

[Illustration: "I CALLED HER AND PUT THE QUESTION."]

"But if the cottage is yours," I said, at last, "how came that little
scoundrel----"

"That's just what I have come down to find out," he said. "Now, tell me,
Mr. Oxenham, from whom did you take the cottage?"

"From Mr. Joseph Scorer."

"William, you mean; but that is a detail."

"Joseph," said I. "Stay! I'll show you my agreement," and I went inside
and got it.

"Joseph?" he said, with knitted brow, as he perused the document; and,
after a pause, "Then what the deuce has become of William? What kind of
a man was he?"

"Small, sharp, brown man, with one club foot."

He nodded.

"Which foot?" he asked.

I had to cast back my thoughts.

"Left," I said, at last.

"No, right," said he.

"Left; I am quite sure of it."

He tapped the folded paper against his hand, and said--

"One of us is wrong. Scorer has been in my service for fifteen years,
and I ought to know."

"Suppose we ask my wife if she remembers?"

I called her and put the question.

"His left foot was the lame one," she said, after a thoughtful pause. "I
can see him standing there"--she said it so decidedly that we
involuntarily turned to look, but he was not there, except in her
memory--"and it was his right shoulder that humped up. Yes, I am quite
sure of it."

"This is very curious," said Mr. Sawyer. "I am afraid there is something
wrong. Besides, Scorer never could have done such a thing. He was as
honest as the day."

"And yet he let this cottage sixteen times over to sixteen different
parties, and I have had the privilege, such as it is, of holding the
fort against them all."

"I can't believe William Scorer would do such a thing," he said, looking
at us with eyes full of puzzled suspicion, as though he were not quite
sure whether I had told him all I knew of the matter.

"Joseph," said I.

He tapped his foot impatiently, and we lapsed into silence. An idea
struck me suddenly.

"Is there a Joseph Scorer as well as a William?" I asked.

He looked at me abstractedly.

"There was a brother," he said at last, "and, if I remember rightly, a
twin brother, but I have not heard of him for years. I do not think I
ever saw him. I have an idea he went to the bad." Our eyes met and held
one another, and my thought crossed his.

"What do you suspect, Mr. Oxenham?" he asked.

"I susp