Timmins looked scrutinisingly at it.

"Well, I'm sure, sir! What a forger you would have made!" he said
admiringly. "I would have sworn that was Mr. Mills's own hand of write.
It's wonderful, sir."

Mr. Taynton sighed, and took the paper again.

"Yes, it is like, isn't it?" he said, "and it's so easy to do. Luckily
forgers don't know the way to forge properly."

"And what might that be, sir?" asked Timmins.

"Why, to throw yourself mentally into the nature of the man whose
handwriting you wish to forge. Of course one has to know the handwriting
thoroughly well, but if one does that one just has to visualise it, and
then, as I said, project oneself into the other, not laboriously copy the
handwriting. Let's try another. Ah, who is that letter from? Mrs.
Assheton isn't it. Let me look at the signature just once again."

Mr. Taynton closed his eyes a moment after looking at it. Then he took
his quill, and wrote quickly.

"You would swear to that, too, would you not, Timmins?" he asked.

"Why, God bless me yes, sir," said he. "Swear to it on the book."

The door opened and as Godfrey Mills came in, Mr. Taynton tweaked the
paper out of Timmins's hand, and tore it up. It might perhaps seem