though the opinions given by them were adverse to the claims of the impostor, she only became more fixed in her ideas.  Early the morning after the Claimant’s arrival, she sent her Irish servant, John Coyne, to the hotel in the Rue St. Honore with a pressing message, but was told that “Sir Roger” was not well; his mistress, dissatisfied with that message, sent him again, whereupon “Sir Roger” came out of his bedroom and walked past him “slowly and with his head down,” bidding him at the same time go and tell his mamma that he was not able to come to her; and his mistress, still more dissatisfied, then directed her servant “to take a cab immediately and fetch her son.”  Coyne then went a third time and found “Sir Roger” with his attorney and his casual acquaintance sitting at breakfast, but was again unsuccessful.  Lady Tichborne that afternoon went herself to the hotel, and was then permitted to see her son in a darkened chamber, and in the presence of his attorney and friend.  “Sir Roger,” said Coyne, who tells the story, “was lying on the bed with his back turned to us and his face to the wall,” and he added that while he was in that position, his mistress leaned over and kissed Sir Roger on the mouth, observing at the same time that “he looked like his father, though his ears were like his uncle’s.”  Then “Sir Roger” having remarked that he was “nearly stifled,” Lady Tichborne directed Coyne to “take off her son’s coat and undo his braces;” which duties the faithful domestic accomplished with some difficulty, while at the same time he “managed to pull him over as well as he could.”  Upon this Mr. Holmes, solemnly standing up, addressed John Coyne in the words:  “You are a witness that Lady Tichborne recognises her son,” and John Coyne having replied, “And so are you,” the ceremony of recognition was complete.

Soon after this it was rumoured in the neighbourhood of Alresford, that the Dowager Lady Tichborne had acknowledged the stranger as her lost son Roger; that she had determined to allow the repentant wanderer L1000 a year; and that he was going to take a house at Croydon pending his entering into the possession of the Tichborne estates.  There happened then to be living in Alresford a gentleman named Hopkins.  He had been solicitor to the Tichborne family, but they had long ceased to employ him.  He had also been a trustee of the Doughty estates, but had been compelled to resign that position, at which he had expressed much chagrin.  Hopkins had an acquaintance named Baignet at Winchester, an eccentric person of an inquisitive turn.  Both these began at this time to busy themselves greatly in the matter of the Tichborne Claimant, who, on his next visit to Alresford, was accordingly invited to stay at Mr. Hopkins’s house.  From that time Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Baignet became active partisans of the Claimant’s cause.  Hopkins had not been the solicitor of Roger Tichborne, but he had seen him occasionally from fifteen to twenty years previously; and he made an affidavit, that “though