turned to my father--"am I to entrust them, Sir John?"

My father nodded towards Billy Priske, who stepped forward and tucked
both parcels under his arm, while Mr. Knox spread his papers on the
table.


We walked back to our lodgings that afternoon, with Billy Priske
behind us bearing in his pocket the Great Seal and under his arm, in
a checked kerchief, the Iron Crown of Corsica.

Two mornings later we took horse and set our faces westward again;
and thus ended my brief first visit to London. Billy Priske carried
the sacred parcel on the saddle before him; and my uncle, riding
beside him, spent no small part of the way in an exhortation against
lying in general, and particularly against the sin of laying false
claim to the paternity of twelve children.

Now, so shaken was Billy by his one adventure in London that until we
had passed the tenth milestone he seemed content enough to be rated.
I believe that as, for the remainder of his stay in London, he had
never strayed beyond sight, so even yet he took comfort and security
from my uncle's voice; "since," said he, quoting a Cornish proverb,
"'tis better be rated by your own than mated with a stranger."
But, by-and-by, taking courage to protest that a lie might on
occasion be pardonable and even necessary, he drew my father into the
discussion.

"This difficulty of Billy's," interposed my father, "was in some sort
anticipated by Plato, who instanced that a madman with a knife in his