Part 73

"Ah," said Dick, "that'sh where it is. He isn't old, you see, now, to look at."

"Not old to look at! Then how on earth---- I should like to know how you managed all that. What have you been doing to the poor gentleman?"

"That'sh my affair," said Dick. "An' if I don' tell you you won' find that out anyway!"

"There's only one way you could have done it," said Paradine, pretending to hesitate. "It must have been done by some meddling with magic. Now what---- Let me see--yes---- Surely the Stone I brought your poor mother from India was given to me as a talisman of some sort? You can't have been sharp enough to get hold of that!"

"How did you know?" cried Dick sharply. "Who told you?"

"I am right, then? Well, you are a clever fellow. I should like to know how you did it, now?"

"Did it with the Shtone," said Dick, evidently discomposed by such unexpected penetration, but unable to prevent a little natural complacency. "All my own idea. No one helped me. It--it washn't sho bad for me, wash it?"

"Bad! it was capital!" cried Marmaduke enthusiastically. "It was a stroke of genius! And so my Indian Stone has done all this for you. Sounds like an Arabian Night, by Jove! By-the-by, you don't happen to have it about you, do you? I should rather like to look at it again. It's a real curiosity after this."

Paul trembled with anxiety. Would Dick be induced to part with it? If so, he was saved! But Dick looked at his uncle's outstretched hand, and wagged his head with tipsy cunning.

"I dareshay you would," he said, "but I'm not sho green as all that. Don't let that Stone out of my hands for anyone."

"Why, I only wanted to look at it for a minute or two," said Marmaduke; "I wouldn't hurt it or lose it."

"You won' get chance," said Dick.

"Oh, very well," said Paradine carelessly, "just as you please, it doesn't matter; though when we come to talk things over a little, you may find it better to trust me more than that."

"Wha' do you mean?" said Dick uneasily.

"Well, I'll try to explain as well as I can, my boy (drink a little of this soda water first, it's an excellent thing after supper); there, you're better now, aren't you? Now, I've found you out, as you see; but only because I knew something of the powers of this Stone of yours, and guessed the rest. It doesn't at all follow that other people, who know nothing at all, will be as sharp; if you're more careful about your behaviour in future--unless, unless, young fellow----" and here he paused meaningly.

"Unless what?" asked Dick suspiciously.

"Unless I chose to tell them what I've found out."

"What would you tell them?" said Dick.

"What? Why, what I know of this talisman; tell them to use their eyes; they wouldn't be very long before they found out that something was wrong. And when one or two of your father's friends once get hold of the idea, your game will be very soon over--you know that as well as I do."

"But," stammered Dick, "you wouldn't go and do beastly mean thing like that? I've not been bad fellow to you."

"The meanness, my dear boy, depends entirely upon the view you take of it. Now, the question with me, as a man of honour (and I may tell you an over-nice sense of honour has been a drawback I've had to struggle against all my life), the question with me is this: Is it not my plain duty to step in and put a stop to this topsy-turvy state of things, to show you up as the barefaced young impostor you are, and restore my unhappy brother-in-law to his proper position?"

"Very well expressed," thought Paul, who had been getting uncomfortable; "he has a heart, as he said, after all!"

"How does that seem to strike you?" added Paradine.

"It shtrikes me as awful rot," said Dick, with refreshing candour.

"It's the language of conscience, but I don't expect you to see it in the same light. I don't mind confessing to you, either, that I'm a poor devil to whom money and a safe and respectable position (all of which I have here) are great considerations. But whenever I see the finger of duty and honour and family affection all beckoning me along a particular road, I make a point of obeying their monitions--occasionally. I don't mean to say that I never have bolted down a back way, instead, when it was made worth my while, or that I never will."

"I wonder what he's driving at now," thought Paul.

"I don't know about duty and honour, and all that," said Dick; "my head aches, it's the noise they're making upstairs. Are you goin' to tell?"

"The fact is, my dear boy, that when one has had a keen sense of honour in constant use for several years, it's like most other articles, apt to become a little the worse for wear. Mine is not what it used to be, Dicky (that's your name, isn't it?). Our powers fail as we grow old."