The eminent lawyer cleared his throat eloquently and relighted the athletic cigar, which had found occasion to go out.

“It will be a very fine thing for this nephew,” he added speculatively.  “Very fine, indeed.  Major Calvert has no children, and, as I say, the nephew will be his heir—­if found.  Also the lawyer who discovers the absent youth will receive ten thousand dollars.  Ten thousand dollars is not a sum to be sneezed at, Mr. Good.  Not to be sneezed at, sir.  Not to be sneezed at,” thundered the eminent lawyer forensically.

Garrison agreed.  He would never think of sneezing at it, even if he was subject to that form of recreation.  But what had that to do with him?

The eminent lawyer attentively scrutinized the blue streamer from his cigar.

“Well, I’ve found him at last.  You are he, Mr. Good.  Mr. Good, my heartiest congratulations, sir.”  And Mr. Snark insisted upon shaking the bewildered Garrison impressively by the hand.

Garrison’s head swam.  Then his wild dream had come true!  His identity had been at last discovered!  He was not the offspring of some criminal, but the scion of a noble Virginia house!  But Mr. Snark was talking again.

“You see,” he began slowly, focusing an attentive eye on Garrison’s face, noting its every light and shade, “this nice old gentleman and his wife are hard up for a nephew.  You and I are hard up for money.  Why not effect a combination?  Eh, why not?  It would be sinful to waste such an opportunity of doing good.  In you I give them a nice, respectable nephew, who is tired of reaping his wild oats.  You are probably much better than the original.  We are all satisfied.  I do everybody a good turn by the exercise of a little judgment.”

Garrison’s dream crumbled to ashes.

“Oh!” he said blankly, “you—­you mean to palm me off as the nephew?”

“Exactly, my son, the long-lost nephew.  You are fitted for the role.  They haven’t ever seen the original, and then, by chance, you have a birthmark, shaped like a spur, beneath your right collar-bone.  Oh, yes, I marked it while you were bathing.  I’ve hunted the baths in the chance of finding a duplicate, for I could not afford to run the risks of advertising.

“It seems this nephew has a similar mark, his mother having mentioned it once in a letter to her brother, and it is the only means of identification.  Luck is with us, Mr. Good, and of course you will take full advantage of it.  As a side bonus you can pay me twenty-five thousand or so when you come into the estate on your uncle’s death.”

The eminent lawyer, his calculating eye still on Garrison, then proceeded with much forensic ability and virile imagination to lay the full beauties of the “cinch” before him.

“But supposing the real nephew shows up?” asked Garrison hesitatingly, after half an hour’s discussion.

“Impossible.  I am fully convinced he’s dead.  Possession is nine points of the law, my son.  If he should happen to turn up, which he won’t, why, you have only to brand him as a fraud.  I’m a kind-hearted man, and I merely wish Major Calvert to have the pleasure of killing fatted calf for one instead of a burial.  I’m sure the real nephew is dead.  Anyway, the search will be given up when you are found.”