“But what do you get out of it, Jimmy?”
“I get a name, my dear; an old, old name; an older lineage, than which there is none better in the Old Dominion; an ancestry that is unimpeachable; a reputation which stands for gentility, and which has stood for gentility for generations; a career, all made in a moment, but which is, nevertheless, three centuries old; an established place in the world which none can deny me—Heaven knows that I need one just now; and a safe refuge in which I can hide myself for the rest of my natural life, without the trouble of attempting to disguise my face, or my mannerisms.”
“All the same, Jimmy, there are plenty of people in the world, honest men and crooks, policemen and judges on the bench, lawyers and ex-convicts, who will quickly recognize the features of Jimmy Duryea, if those features happen to be seen.”
“Juno, that is just the point; they won’t. Ledger Dinwiddie will bear a strong resemblance to the late lamented Bare-Faced Jimmy, to be sure, but nobody will ever think of associating the two; never. Besides, if the necessity should arise, Ledger Dinwiddie could establish his identity beyond question. People could be found who knew him when he was a boy.”
“And you might even claim, if you choose, that the defunct Jimmy was a distant relation who went to the bad in his early youth, and who had been cast off by ‘the family,’” said Juno.
“Precisely. Not at all a bad idea.”
“Well, what then?”
“Everything then, Juno. Like Monte Cristo, the world will be mine. I will only have to reach out my two hands and take it. And with my accomplishments I do not anticipate that it will be a difficult task to do so.”
“Probably not—with your accomplishments.”
“It will never occur to any of those Virginians, up there, that a man would be ass enough to lay claim to a worthless estate, encumbered by unnumbered debts; to a broken fortune—and all that. They will accept me on the spot, and without asking a question.”