Till his cross-examination in Chancery he had never heard of this packet, and when he was informed of it his solicitor naturally demanded a copy.  Gosford had destroyed the original, and of course there was no end of capital out of it; a concocted original was made, which was to the effect that this gentleman, “so like Roger,” had seduced his cousin, and that if she proved to be enceinte, Gosford was to take care of her.  Luckily “Kate Doughty” had her original preserved with sacred affection.  But such was the memory of this man’s early life, contrasted with what would have been the memory of Sir Roger Tichborne.

He did not recollect being “at Stonyhurst, but said positively he was at Winchester, where certainly Roger never was.  He did not remember his mother’s Christian names, and could not write his own.

He came to England to see his mother, and then would not go to her; she went to see him, and he got on to the bed and turned his face to the wall.  She did not see his face, but recognized him by his ears, because they were like his uncle’s, then ordered the servant to undo his braces for fear he should choke.

Such a piece as this on the stage would not have lasted one night; in real life it had a run for many years.  But then there never was a rogue that some fool would not believe in.  How else was it possible that millions believed in this man, who had forgotten the religion he had been brought up in, and was married by a Wesleyan minister at a Wesleyan church, he being, as his mother informed him, a strict Roman Catholic from his birth?  However, he did his best to reform his error by getting married again by a Roman priest, although he made another blunder, and forgetting he was Sir Roger Tichborne, married as Arthur Orton, the son of the Wapping butcher.  When his dear mother reminded him of his being a Catholic, he wrote and thanked her for the information, and hoped the Blessed Maria would take care of her for evermore, little dreaming that the “Black Maria” would one day take particularly good care of himself.

So that he forgot the place of his birth, the seat of his ancestors, the friends of his youth, the face, features, and form of his mother, his education and religion, his brother officers in the regiment, the regiment itself, and the position he occupied, thinking he had been a private for fifteen days instead of a painstaking, studious, diligent officer, who was beloved by his fellows.  He had forgotten all his neighbours, servants, dependants, as well as the family solicitor who made his will and was appointed his executor.  He forgot his life in Paris, the village church of his ancestral seat—­nay, the ancestral seat itself—­and the very road that led to it.  He forgot his old friend and historian, who swore he had never altered the least in appearance since Roger left—­historian and picture-cleaner to the family.  In short, there was not one single thing in the life of Roger that he knew.  He forgot what any but a born fool would remember while he was in poverty and bankruptcy for a couple of hundred pounds; the real Roger had written home on hearing of the death of his uncle, from whom he derived his title and estates, saying, “Pray go to Messrs. Glyn’s and exchange my letter of credit for L2,000 for three years for one for L3,000.”