"'Yes, indeed. The very first thing he said after coming into the house was that he had come home resolved to make me and my sister Maria thoroughly comfortable. Poor Maria died some years ago, but of course he did not know it. Then he said that he should allow me fifty pounds a year for life.'
"'That was very kind and nice indeed, Miss Simcoe,' I said.
"By this time, seeing that my sympathy was with her, her heart opened altogether to me, and she said that she felt sure that her nephew would not like it were she to take in a lodger, and might indeed consider it a hint that he might have been more liberal than he was. But she invited me to stay three days with her while I was looking about for suitable lodgings. I found that her house was a regular rendezvous for the tabbies of the neighborhood. Every afternoon there were some four or five of them there. Some brought work, others came in undisguisedly to gossip. Many of these had known John Simcoe in his younger days, and by careless questioning I elicited the fact that no one would have recognized him had it not been for Miss Simcoe having told them of his arrival.
"The manager of the bank I rather shrank from an encounter with, but I managed to obtain from Miss Simcoe a letter her nephew had written to her when he was away from home a short time before he left England, and also one written by him since his return. So far as I could see, there was not the slightest resemblance between them.
"I thought that I might possibly get at someone less likely to be on his guard than the bank manager, and she happened to mention as an interesting fact that one of the clerks who had entered the bank a lad of seventeen, only a month or two before her nephew left, was now married to the daughter of one of her gossips. I said that her story had so deeply interested me that I should be glad to make his acquaintance.
"He came with his wife the evening before I left. He was very chatty and pleasant, and while there was a general conversation going on among the others, I said to him that I was a great student of handwriting, and I flattered myself that I could tell a man's character from his handwriting; but I owned that I had been quite disconcerted by two letters which Miss Simcoe was kind enough to show me from her nephew, one written before he left the bank, the other dated three or four months ago.
"'I cannot see the slightest resemblance between the two,' I said, 'and do not remember any instance which has come under my knowledge of the handwriting of any man or woman changing so completely in the course of twenty years. The one is a methodical, business sort of writing, showing marks of steady purpose, regularity of habits, and a kindly disposition. I won't give you my opinion of the other, but the impression that was left upon my mind was far from favorable.'
"'Yes, there has been an extraordinary change,' he agreed. 'I can recollect the former one perfectly, for I saw him sign scores of letters and documents, and if he had had an account standing at the bank now I should without question honor a check so signed. No doubt the great difference is accounted for by the life that Mr. Simcoe has led. He told me himself that for years, at one time, he had never taken a pen in hand, and that he had almost forgotten how to write; and that his fingers had grown so clumsy pulling at ropes, rowing an oar, digging for gold, and opening oysters for pearls, that they had become all thumbs, and he wrote no better than a schoolboy.'
"'But that is not the case, Mr. Askill,' I said; 'the writing is still clerkly in character, and does not at all answer to his own description.'
"'I noticed that myself, and so did our chief. He showed me a letter that he had received from Simcoe, asking him to run up for a few days to stay with him in London. He showed it to me with the remark that in all his experience he had never seen so great and complete a change in the handwriting of any man as in that of Mr. Simcoe since he left the bank. He considered it striking proof how completely a man's handwriting depends upon his surroundings. He turned up an old ledger containing many entries in Simcoe's handwriting, and we both agreed that we could not see a single point of resemblance.'