“As usual?” I pointedly observed.
“Altogether as usual.”
“Notwithstanding the robbery?”
“Oh, as for that,” the man replied, shrugging his shoulders, “it was a very small affair. The miserable was caught and would be punished.”
An Englishman, I understood.
Yes, an Englishman. No doubt at this moment he was being tried, and already safe in prison. “Au revoir, monsieur! à votre service, monsieur!”
My legs felt fully their assumed age as I turned and faltered down the steps. So all hope was over; poor Teddy was really caught, and the regiment would know him no more. Unless!—why, what could I do?—good gracious!—
I was so deep in my own troubled thoughts and plans, I scarcely noticed my supposed old club friend on the seat; should not have noticed him at all, in fact, had I not just at this moment, when I was calling a carriage to drive up to the “Monopôle,” come plump on the other highly respectable elderly gentleman I evidently so closely resembled.
Face to face we met, and naturally stared at each other. Will it be believed we were absolutely exactly alike, down even to the cut and color of our clothes? For the first and only time in my life I saw myself at full length, myself as I should be at sixty (if I only took care of myself), sedate, healthy, a county magistrate, member of Brooke’s, with my youngest boy just leaving Eton. I hurried into the carriage and told the man to drive up to the “Monopôle” as fast as he could go, just giving a look round at my friend on the seat as I got in. He had turned, and, with his hands on his knees, was staring after me, dumbfounded. My double had turned and was staring after me too.
To both those gentlemen, if they should ever chance to read this work, I offer my sincere apology; they will understand now the reason of my accidental resemblance, and, as between men of the world, will no doubt forgive it. I can assure them both it will not occur again; how can it, seeing that wig and whiskers are buried under an olive-tree on the Mentone road?