"We will take your name as Elsie MacDougall. Is it true that you ran away from your home on a certain Wednesday?"
Elsie replied that she had done so, and then she was asked a great many questions, first about herself, then about the companions she had travelled with, which it would take far too much room to write down. She was terrified almost beyond measure at answering such inquiries with the terrible "fairy mother" standing close by, especially when other gentlemen began to ask her questions too in a sharp way that confused and bewildered her. Every particular of her acquaintance with these people was drawn from her, and a great deal of interest displayed in her account of how she was separated from Duncan, and the description of "Uncle William's" sudden change into "Grandpapa Donaldson."
"Now look well at this person. Have you ever seen him before?" the magistrate asked, pointing to the man standing near Mrs. Donaldson.
Elsie replied that she had not but he seemed to remind her a little of some one she had seen.
One of the gentlemen then held up a black wig, and whiskers, beard, and moustache.
Elsie recognised them at once. "I know what that is like!" she exclaimed, in great astonishment. "He had hair like that when he was Uncle William."
Another wig was then held before Elsie's wondering eyes. This time it was grey, with a small close-cut beard and whiskers, such as the old man in the railway carriage wore.
They were handed in turn to the man standing by Mrs. Donaldson, with a request that he would put them on. This, however, he indignantly refused to do, but Elsie took a steady look, and felt sure that if he had he would have looked exactly like Uncle William and Grandpapa Donaldson.
The next astonishing thing shown her was a light grey coat, the exact counterpart of the one worn by the gentleman in the carriage and Uncle William. It was turned inside out, and behold, it became a completely new overcoat of a drab colour, like the one worn by Grandpapa Donaldson.
So that was how he had changed himself so completely, by changing his black hair for grey and turning his coat inside out. He must have done it very quickly and quietly, while Mrs. Donaldson kept Elsie's eyes fixed on her. He stoutly denied this, but it was very strange that the black wig should have been discovered in a mysterious pocket of that cleverly-made coat, and that Mrs. Donaldson's papa should be so vain as to go about in a wig, and false whiskers, beard and moustache, because he had none of his own—very strange indeed; and so the lawyers and magistrates seemed to think it.