"No, my friend; if you know that story you must know that I was Ormerod of Foxcroft House."
Master Juggins was suddenly all animation.
"I know it well," he returned. "You and Charles, your elder brother, were both out in the '19. Charles died in Scotland, and you escaped with the remnants of the expedition to France."
"And Foxcroft House was sequestrated to the Crown," I amended bitterly.
"The Hampshire branch have it now," went on Master Juggins. "They toadied it through the Pelhams."
"Yes, —— them!"
I had forgotten my surroundings, forgotten the dingy cobbles of Mincing Lane, forgotten the strange circumstances under which I had met this strange person who seemed so intimately versed in my family history. My thoughts were back for the moment in the soft green Dorset countryside of my boyhood. I lived over again the brave days at Foxcroft when Charles had been master and I his lieutenant. But the moment passed, the memories faded, and my eyes saw again the drab buildings of the alley and the odd figure of my deliverer—whom I had first delivered.
"And you, sir," I said. "May I ask how it happens you know so much concerning the fortunes of a plain Dorset family?"
He seemed not to hear me, standing there in a brown study, and I spoke to him again sharply.
"Yes, yes; I heard," he answered, almost impatiently. "I was—But this is no place for discussion. Come with me to my house. I live in Holborn, not many minutes' walk from here."