“That will do,” said his grace.
“Yes, ’pon my soul, it’s quite extraordinary,” he took a cigar case from his pocket, proffered a cigar which Jones took, and then lit one himself.
“Look here,” said Jones suddenly alarmed by a new idea, “you aren’t guying me, are you?—you haven’t taken it into your heads that I’ve gone dotty—mad?”
“Mad!” cried the old gentleman with a start. “Never—such an idea never entered my mind. Why—why should it?”
“Only you take this thing so quietly.”
“Quietly—well, what would you have? My dear fellow, what is the good of shouting—ever? Not a bit. It’s bad form. I take everything as it comes.”
“Well, then, listen whilst I tell you how all this happened. I came over here some time ago to rope in a contract with the British Government over some steel fixtures. I was partner with a man named Aaron Stringer. Well, I failed on the contract and found myself broke with less than ten pounds in my pocket. I was sitting in the Savoy lounge when in came a man whom I knew at once by sight, but I couldn’t place his name on him. We had drinks together in the American bar, then we went upstairs to the lounge. He would not tell me who he was. ‘Look in the looking-glass behind you,’ said he, ‘and you will see who I am.’ I looked and I saw him. I was his twin image. I must tell you first that I had been having some champagne cocktails and a whisky and soda. I’m not used to drink. We had a jamboree together and dinner at some place, and then he sent me home as himself—I was blind.
“When I woke up next morning I said nothing but lay low, thinking it was all a joke. I ought to have spoken at once, but didn’t, one makes mistakes in life—”
“We all do that,” said the other; “yes—go on.”
“And later that day I opened a newspaper and saw my name and that I had committed suicide. It was Rochester, of course, that had committed suicide; did it on the underground.—Then I was in a nice fix. There I was in Rochester’s clothes, with not a penny in my pockets; couldn’t go to the hotel, couldn’t go anywhere—so I determined to be Rochester, for a while, at least.