Pitman did not reply, but continued to gaze disconsolately on his
image in the glass.

'Do you know,' asked Michael, 'what the Governor of South
Carolina said to the Governor of North Carolina? "It's a long

time between drinks," observed that powerful thinker; and if you
will put your hand into the top left-hand pocket of my ulster, I

have an impression you will find a flask of brandy. Thank you,
Pitman,' he added, as he filled out a glass for each. 'Now you

will give me news of this.'
The artist reached out his hand for the water-jug, but Michael

arrested the movement.
'Not if you went upon your knees!' he cried. 'This is the finest

liqueur brandy in Great Britain.'
Pitman put his lips to it, set it down again, and sighed.

'Well, I must say you're the poorest companion for a holiday!'
cried Michael. 'If that's all you know of brandy, you shall have

no more of it; and while I finish the flask, you may as well
begin business. Come to think of it,' he broke off, 'I have made

an abominable error: you should have ordered the cart before you
were disguised. Why, Pitman, what the devil's the use of you? why

couldn't you have reminded me of that?'
'I never even knew there was a cart to be ordered,' said the

artist. 'But I can take off the disguise again,' he suggested
eagerly.

'You would find it rather a bother to put on your beard,'
observed the lawyer. 'No, it's a false step; the sort of thing

that hangs people,' he continued, with eminentcheerfulness, as
he sipped his brandy; 'and it can't be retraced now. Off to the

mews with you, make all the arrangements; they're to take the
piano from here, cart it to Victoria, and dispatch it thence by

rail to Cannon Street, to lie till called for in the name of
Fortune du Boisgobey.'

'Isn't that rather an awkward name?' pleaded Pitman.
'Awkward?' cried Michael scornfully. 'It would hang us both!

Brown is both safer and easier to pronounce. Call it Brown.'
'I wish,' said Pitman, 'for my sake, I wish you wouldn't talk so

much of hanging.'
'Talking about it's nothing, my boy!' returned Michael. 'But take

your hat and be off, and mind and pay everything beforehand.'
Left to himself, the lawyer turned his attention for some time

exclusively to the liqueur brandy, and his spirits, which had
been pretty fair all morning, now prodigiously rose. He proceeded

to adjust his whiskers finally before the glass. 'Devilish rich,'
he remarked, as he contemplated his reflection. 'I look like a

purser's mate.' And at that moment the window-glass spectacles
(which he had hitherto destined for Pitman) flashed into his

mind; he put them on, and fell in love with the effect. 'Just
what I required,' he said. 'I wonder what I look like now? A

humorousnovelist, I should think,' and he began to practise
divers characters of walk, naming them to himself as--he

proceeded. 'Walk of a humorousnovelist--but that would require
an umbrella. Walk of a purser's mate. Walk of an Australian

colonist revisiting the scenes of childhood. Walk of Sepoy
colonel, ditto, ditto. And in the midst of the Sepoy colonel

(which was an excellent assumption, although inconsistent with
the style of his make-up), his eye lighted on the piano. This

instrument was made to lock both at the top and at the keyboard,
but the key of the latter had been mislaid. Michael opened it and

ran his fingers over the dumb keys. 'Fine instrument--full, rich
tone,' he observed, and he drew in a seat.

When Mr Pitman returned to the studio, he was appalled to observe
his guide, philosopher, and friend performing miracles of

execution on the silent grand.
'Heaven help me!' thought the little man, 'I fear he has been

drinking! Mr Finsbury,' he said aloud; and Michael, without
rising, turned upon him a countenance somewhat flushed, encircled

with the bush of the red whiskers, and bestridden by the
spectacles. 'Capriccio in B-flat on the departure of a friend,'

said he, continuing his noiseless evolutions.
Indignation awoke in the mind of Pitman. 'Those spectacles were

to be mine,' he cried. 'They are an essential part of my
disguise.'

'I am going to wear them myself,' replied Michael; and he added,
with some show of truth, 'There would be a devil of a lot of

suspicion aroused if we both wore spectacles.'
'O, well,' said the assenting Pitman, 'I rather counted on them;

but of course, if you insist. And at any rate, here is the cart
at the door.'

While the men were at work, Michael concealed himself in the
closet among the debris of the barrel and the wires of the piano;

and as soon as the coast was clear the pair sallied forth by the
lane, jumped into a hansom in the King's Road, and were driven

rapidly toward town. It was still cold and raw and boisterous;
the rain beat strongly in their faces, but Michael refused to

have the glass let down; he had now suddenly donned the character
of cicerone, and pointed out and lucidly commented on the sights

of London, as they drove. 'My dear fellow,' he said, 'you don't
seem to know anything of your native city. Suppose we visited the

Tower? No? Well, perhaps it's a trifle out of our way. But,
anyway--Here, cabby, drive round by Trafalgar Square!' And on

that historicbattlefield he insisted on drawing up, while he
criticized the statues and gave the artist many curious details

(quite new to history) of the lives of the celebrated men they
represented.

It would be difficult to express what Pitman suffered in the cab:
cold, wet, terror in the capital degree, a grounded distrust of

the commander under whom he served, a sense of imprudency in the
matter of the low-necked shirt, a bitter sense of the decline and

fall involved in the deprivation of his beard, all these were
among the ingredients of the bowl. To reach the restaurant, for

which they were deviously steering, was the first relief. To hear
Michael bespeak a private room was a second and a still greater.

Nor, as they mounted the stair under the guidance of an
unintelligible alien, did he fail to note with gratitude the

fewness of the persons present, or the still more cheering fact
that the greater part of these were exiles from the land of

France. It was thus a blessed thought that none of them would be
connected with the Seminary; for even the French professor,

though admittedly a Papist, he could scarce imagine frequenting
so rakish an establishment.

The alien introduced them into a small bare room with a single
table, a sofa, and a dwarfish fire; and Michael called promptly

for more coals and a couple of brandies and sodas.
'O, no,' said Pitman, 'surely not--no more to drink.'

'I don't know what you would be at,' said Michael plaintively.
'It's positively necessary to do something; and one shouldn't

smoke before meals I thought that was understood. You seem to
have no idea of hygiene.' And he compared his watch with the

clock upon the chimney-piece.
Pitman fell into bitter musing; here he was, ridiculously shorn,

absurdly disguised, in the company of a drunken man in
spectacles, and waiting for a champagneluncheon in a restaurant

painfully foreign. What would his principals think, if they could
see him? What if they knew his tragic and deceitful errand?

From these reflections he was aroused by the entrance of the
alien with the brandies and sodas. Michael took one and bade the

waiter pass the other to his friend.