“By Jove! it must be Scotch blood is in you. I never heard of such caution!”
“No, I believe my English connection is regular Saxon. When a man has been in the newspapers in England, he need not affect secrecy or caution in talking of himself. I figured in a trial lately; I don't know if you read the cause. It was tried in Ireland—Count Bramleigh de Pracontal against Bramleigh.”
“What, are you Pracontal?” cried the stranger, starting to a sitting posture. “Yes. Why are you so much interested?”
“Because I have seen the place. I have been over the property in dispute, and the question naturally interests me.”
“Ha! you know Castello, then?”
“Castello, or Bishop's Folly. I know it best by the latter name.”
“And whom am I speaking to?” said Pracontal; “for as you know me, perhaps I have some right to ask this.”
“My name is Cutbill; and now that you've heard it, you're nothing the wiser.”
“You probably know the Bramleighs?”
“Every one of them; Augustus, the eldest, I am intimate with.”