Blake coldly withdrew his hand, frowning loftily at Chalks. 'You
should reserve your nonsense for more appropriate occasions,' he said.
'Though you speak in a spirit of foolish levity, you have builded
better than you knew. I am indeed Shakespeare re-incarnated. My books
alone would prove it; they could have been dictated by no other mind.
But--look at this.'

He produced from an interior pocket a case of red morocco and handed
it to me. 'You,' he said, with a flattering emphasis upon the
pronoun, 'you are a man who can treat a serious matter seriously.
What do you think of that?'

The case contained a photograph, and the photograph represented the
head and shoulders of Mr. Blake and a bust of Shakespeare, placed
cheek by jowl. In the pointed beard and the wide-set eyes there were,
perhaps, the rudiments of something remotely like a likeness.

'Isn't that conclusive?' he demanded. 'Doesn't that place the fact
beyond the reach of question?'

'You've got more hair than you used to have,' said Chalks. 'I'm
talking of the front hair--your forehead ain't as high as it was. But
your back hair is all right enough.'

'You have put your finger on the one, the only, point of difference,'
assented Blake,

On our way home he took my arm, and pitched his voice in the key of
confidence. 'I am writing my autobiography, from my birth in Stratford