Rob started when he saw Mary's father.  
'We have met before, Mr. Angus,' said the colonel .
 
'Yes,' answered Rob, without a ; 'at Castle, was it not?'
 
This was the Angus who had once been unable to anybody without wondering what on earth he ought to say next. This was the colonel whose hand had five minutes before for Rob's throat. The frown on the face of Mary's father was only a protest against her lover's improved appearance. Rob was no longer the hobbledehoy of last Christmas. He was rather particular about the cut of his coat. He had forgotten that he was not a colonel's social equal. In short, when he entered a room now he knew what to do with his hat. Their host saw the two men measuring each other. Dick never smiled, but sometimes his mouth , as now.
 
'You had something special to tell me, had you not?' he asked Rob.
 
'Well,' Rob replied, with , 'I have something for you in my rooms.'
 
'Suppose my father,' began Dick, meaning to invite the colonel upstairs, but pausing as he saw Rob's brows contract. The colonel saw too, and resented it. No man likes to be left on the of a secret.
 
'Run up yourself, Abinger,' Rob said, seating himself near Mary's father; 'and, stop, here are my keys. I locked it in.'
 
'Why,' asked Dick, while his father also looked up, 'have you some animal up there?'
 
'No,' Rob said, 'it is very tame.'
 
Dick climbed the stair, after casting a quizzical look behind him, which meant that he wondered how long the colonel and Rob would last in a small room together. He unlocked the door of Rob's more quickly than he opened it, for he had no notion of what might be caged up inside, and as soon as he had entered he stopped, amazed. All men of course are amazed once in their lives—when they can get a girl to look at them. This was Dick's second time.
 
It was the hour of the evening when another ten minutes can be stolen from the day by a readjustment of one's window curtains. Rob's blind, however, had given way in the cords, and instead of being pulled up was twisted into two triangles. Just sufficient light straggled through the window to let Dick see the man who was on the hearthrug looking at his boots. There was a smell of oil in the room.
 
Dowton!' Dick exclaimed; 'what masquerade is this?'
 
The other put up his elbow as if to off a blow, and then Dick opened the eyes of anger.
 
'Oh,' he said, 'it is you, is it?'
 
They stood looking at each other in silence.
 
'Just stand there, my fine fellow,' Dick said, 'until I light the gas. I must have a better look at you.'
 
The stranger turned eyes on the door as the light struck him.
 
'Not a single step in that direction,' said Dick, 'unless you want to go over the banisters.'
 
Abinger came closer to the man who was Sir Dowton's double, and looked him over. He wore a white jacket, and an to match, and it would have been less easy to mistake him for a baronet aping the barber than it had been for the barber to ape the baronet.
 
'Your name?' asked Dick.
 
'Josephs,' the other .
 
'You are a barber, I presume?'
 
'I follow the profession of hair-dressing,' replied Josephs, with his first show of spirit.
 
Had Dick not an inscrutable face, Josephs would have known that his inquisitor was suffering from a sense of the ludicrous. Dick had just remembered that his father was downstairs.
 
'Well, Josephs, I shall have to hand you over to the police.'
 
'I think not,' said Josephs, in his gentlemanly voice.
 
'Why not?' asked Dick.
 
'Because then it would all come out.'
 
'What would all come out?'
 
'The way your father was deceived. The society papers would make a great deal of it, and he would not like that.'
 
Dick , though the other did not hear him.
 
'You read the society journals, Josephs?'
 
'Rather!' said Josephs.
 
'Perhaps you write for them?'
 
Josephs did not say.
 
'Well, how were you brought here?' Dick asked.
 
'Your friend,' said Josephs sulkily, 'came into our place of business in Southampton Row half an hour ago, and saw me. He insisted on bringing me here at once in a cab. I wanted to put on a black coat, but he would not hear of it.'
 
'Ah, then, I suppose you gave Mr. Angus the full of your roguery as you came along?'
 
'He would not let me speak,' said Josephs. 'He said it was no affair of his.'
 
'No? Then you will be so good as to favour me with the pretty story.'
 
Dick lit a cigar and seated himself. The baronet looked undecidedly at a chair.
 
'Certainly not,' said Dick; 'you can stand.'
 
Josephs told his tale , occasionally with a gleam of humour, and sometimes with a sigh. His ambition to be a gentleman, but with no desire to know the way, had come to him one day in his youth when another gentleman flung a sixpence at him. In a moment Josephs saw what it was to belong to the upper circles. He hurried to a street corner to get his boots blacked, tossed the menial the sixpence, telling him to keep the change, and returned home in an , penniless, but with an object in life. That object was to do it again.
 
At the age of eighteen Josephs slaved merrily during the week, but had never any money by Monday morning. He was a gentleman every Saturday evening. Then he lived; for the remainder of the week he was a barber. One of his delights at this period was to have his hair cut at Truefitt's and complain that it was badly done. Having reproved his attendant in a gentlemanly way, he tipped him handsomely and in a glory. It was about this time that he joined a Conservative association.
 
Soon afterwards Josephs was to be seen in Rotten Row, in elegant apparel, hanging over the railing. He bowed and raised his hat to the ladies who took his fancy, and, though they did not respond, glowed with the sensation of being practically a man of fashion. Then he returned to the shop.
 
The years by, and Josephs discovered that he was content to remain a hairdresser if he could be a gentleman now and again. Having supped once in a fashionable restaurant, he was satisfied for a fortnight or so with a sausage and onions at home. Then the came back. He saved up for two months on one occasion, and then took Saturday to Monday at Cookham, where he passed as Henry K. Talbot Devereux. He was known to the waiters and boatmen there as the gentleman who had quite a pleasure in tossing them half-crowns, and for a month afterwards he had sausage without onions. So far this holiday had been the memory of his life. He studied the manners and language of the gentlemen who came to the shop in which he was employed, and began to dream of a big thing . He had learnt long ago that he was good-looking.
 
For a whole year Josephs from being a gentleman except in the smallest way, for he was burning to have a handle to his name, and feared that it could not be done at less than twenty pounds. His week's holiday came, and found Josephs not ready for it. He had only twelve pounds. With a self-denial that was magnificent he crushed his , took only two days of delight at Brighton, and continued to save up for the title. Next summer saw him at the Anglers' Retreat, near Dome Castle. 'Sir Clement Dowton' was the name on his Gladstone bag. A dozen times a day he looked at it till it frightened him, and then he tore the label off. Having done so, he put on a fresh one.
 
Josephs had selected his baronetcy with due care. Years he had been told that he looked like the twin-brother of Sir Clement Dowton, and on he had learned that the baronet was not in England. As for the Anglers' Retreat, he went there because he had heard that it was frequented by persons in the rank of life to which it was his intention to belong for the next week. He had never heard of Colonel Abinger until they met. The rest is known. Josephs dwelt on his residence a............