"Listen, Parker. The Prince comes the day after to-morrow. At eleven o'clock in the morning of that day you've got to be taken ill. Tell Bradshaw you can't work, and you think it's something infectious. Tell him that your cousin, James Finny, who is only staying on with me till he hears of a place, would jump at the job. Send me word, and I will turn up at once."
"Mr. Bradshaw might know you, sir."
"I don't think so. I've never been at the house. Besides, I shall shave off my moustache. Anyway, Parker, I'll take care you lose nothing by it, even if I should be found out."
John Parker left a quarter of an hour later, ten pounds richer than he came. In his pocket he carried a letter which eventually reached Mr. Rivers by special messenger at noon on the 10th. It ran:
Dear James,—Come immediately. I am ill, and Mr. Bradshaw says you can take my place.—Your loving cousin,
John Parker.
With his moustache shaved off, and attired in a painfully respectable ready-made suit, Rivers presented himself at Denton House at one o'clock. He found Mr. Bradshaw in a highly-wrought condition.
"So you're Parker's cousin? A pretty mess he's landed me in!"
"I hope he's not very bad, sir."