“Well, out with your story.”
“Manning Pollard is the son of the man who was also my father. We are exactly alike, though I’m a couple of years older.”
“Are you a legitimate son?”
“I am not—but neither is Manning, though he was legally made so, by his parents’ marriage some years after he was born.”
“You know all that?” cried Zizi. “You were up in Coggs’ Hollow day before yesterday.”
“Yes, miss. I saw you there, at the clerk’s office. I knew then there was trouble brewing for Manning.”
“Double, double, toil and trouble——”
“Yes, miss, exactly that! Manning hired me to personate him here in his rooms the night of—well, you know that night, Mr Prescott. He—oh, thunder! shall I tell it all?”
“Yes, tell it all,” Prescott was breathless with curiosity and interest.
“Well, he paid me heaps to meet him at a certain spot.”