"Are you really Swift Nicks, sir?" asked the lad, looking steadily at me with frank, innocent eyes.
"No more than you are Jonathan Wild or Prester John, my son," I answered.
"Then who are you?" he persisted.
"I'm a poor splicer of fishing-rods. I get my living by riding about the country on a fine horse, with one pair of pistols in my holsters and another pair in my pocket, looking for nice little boys with broken fishing-rods, and mending 'em--the rods, not the boys--so that father never finds it out and the rod's better than ever it was. How big was the chub?"
"That big!" said he, holding his hands about two feet apart.
"The great advantage, my son, of having your rod mended by me is that ever afterwards you'll be able to tell a chub from a whale."
"Sir," said he proudly, "a Chartley never lies."
"Of course," said I, "it's hard to say exactly how big a fish is when you've missed him. So your name's Chartley. Is this Chartley Towers?"
"It is," said he, with a taking boyish pride ringing in his voice. "We are the Chartleys of Chartley Towers. We go back to Edward the Third."
Did ever man enjoy such fat luck as mine? I had been as hard beset as a nut in the nutcrackers. To prove that I was not Swift Nicks I should have to prove that I was Oliver Wheatman. The Bow Street runner would see to that, for, as Swift Nicks, I was worth fifty guineas to him, a sum of money for which he would have hanged half the parish without a twinge. Cross or pile, I should lose the toss. Drive away the cart! Such had been my thoughts, and now a lad's young pride had snatched me out of danger. I grew quite merry over the splicing, and told young Chartley all about my fight with the great jack.