“I’m not Manning Pollard. If you’ve come to arrest him, you’ve got the wrong man.” But though blustering, the speaker was white with fear. Overcome with surprise and terror, he fell back into his chair and began to swear fluently.
“None of that, now,” said Prescott, dumfounded, but vigilant. “If you’re not Manning Pollard you’re his twin brother! Is that it?”
“No—oh, no.”
“Well, then, who are you?”
“I’m—oh, hang it all—I’m Horace Taylor.”
“And just what are you doing in Pollard’s rooms? And why do you look so much like him? You’re his very double!”
“Double, double, toil and trouble!” Zizi chanted softly, to herself, but no one noticed her.
“I am,” said Taylor, bitterly, “and he has betrayed me. I’ll make a clean breast of it. I’ve done nothing wrong—and I didn’t know he was going to. I’m—well I’m his half-brother.”
“You’re the exact image of him in form and feature, but your manner is utterly different.”
“Yes, because he has had education and culture—and I’ve had none.”