Madison's eyes, slowly, as though loath to leave the Patriarch's face,
travelled over the gray homespun suit that clothed the man, the white
wristbands of the home-washed shirt, unstarched, but spotlessly
clean--and his fancy of flowing, Grecian robes with rope girdles seemed
to hold him up to mockery as a crude and paltry bungler before the
perfect, unostentatious harmony of reality.

"There's nothing to it!" whispered Madison softly to himself. "Nothing
to it! There isn't a thing left to do--not even a chance of making a
bluff at earning the money--it's just like _stealing_ it. Why, say, it
would get _me_ if I weren't behind the scenes--honest now, it would!"

Madison drew back from the window and walked toward the door of the
cottage.

"It should take me about fifteen minutes to establish myself on the
basis of a long-lost son with the Patriarch clinging confidingly around
my neck," he observed. "If it takes me any longer than that I'd feel
depressed every time I met myself in the looking-glass."

He reached the cottage door, and, lifting the brass knocker that shone
dimly in the darkness, knocked once, lifted it to knock again--and his
hand fell away as he smiled a little foolishly.

"I forgot the Patriarch was deaf," he muttered. "Wonder what you're
supposed to do? Walk right in, or--"

The door swung suddenly wide open, and upon Madison's face, usually so
perfectly at its owner's control, came a look of stunned surprise. The