"My eldest son, Thomas, of whom I'm speaking, went to the war in the
same ship as General Sir David Bright, and there's a thing I'd like to
tell you about that, Sir Edmund. It never came into my head how curious
a thing it was till yesterday--last night, I may say. Lady Rose
Bright's lady's-maid come in with Lady Groombridge's lady's-maid to see
my wife, and you'll excuse me if I do repeat some woman's gossip when
you see why I do it. Well, the long and short of it was that it seems
Lady Rose Bright has been left rather close as to fortune for a lady in
her position, and the money's all gone off elsewhere. Then the maid
said, Sir Edmund--whether truly or not I don't know, naturally--that
there had been hopes that another will might be sent home from South
Africa, but that nothing came of it. I felt, so to speak, puzzled while
I was listening, and afterwards my wife says to me while we were alone,
she says, 'Wasn't it our Thomas when he was on board ship wrote that he
had put his name to a paper for Sir David Bright?'--witnessing, you'll
understand she meant by that, sir--'and what's become of that paper I
should like to know,' says she. So she up and went to her room and took
out all Thomas's letters, and sure enough it was true."

Akers paused, and then very slowly extracted a fat pocket-book from his
tight-fitting coat, and pulled out a letter beautifully written on thin
paper. He held it with evident respect, and then, after a preparatory
cough, he began to read:

"'I was sent for to-day, and taken up with another of our regiment to
the state cabins by Sir David Bright's servant, and asked to put my name
to a paper as witness to Sir David Bright's signature, and so I did.'"

Akers stopped, and looked across his glasses at Sir Edmund.