'I dare say you get near enough. Who'll I be when I'm dying--and dead?'

'Don't you know?'

'I'm asking.'

I hesitated.

'The Marquis of Twickenham.'

I kept my eyes upon his face; as, indeed, I had done since I came into the room. He did not change countenance in the least.

'It's a bold game you're playing.'

'Your part of it'll require courage.'

'But the risk'll be yours. Suppose, in the middle of the show I quit dying, and make a little remark to the effect that my name's Babbacombe; that I'm no Marquis, and that I was put up to this by a man named Smith. You'd look funny.'

'We should both of us be in rather an amusing situation.'