“That will be news for the old woman. But shall I see him this night? I would not mind waiting till midnight for such a purpose.”
“That you may. But I do not think that even you would know him, were you to see him.”
“Why not? Would he know me?”
“He would: but youth alters more in countenance than age, especially where a foreign climate has acted upon the constitution.”
“I should know him from two things,” said Margaret. “He once so nearly cut off the end of his little finger with a sharp tool, that it hung only by a piece of skin: it was bound up, so that it adhered and grew together; but somehow, the tip got a twist, so that the nail of the finger grew under the hand: it was the left hand.”
“And what was the other mark?”
“It was a deep scar on the back of the same hand, caused by imprudently cutting off a large wart.”
“Now tell me,” said the stranger, drawing the glove off his left hand, "were the scars you mention anything like those?”
“Exactly,” said the clerk, who looked at him again and again with amazement.
“Why, you can’t be he? Are you Master Charles?”