Mr. Mills nodded.  “He looks twenty years younger,” he said, with a smile.  “He’d pass for his own son anywhere.”

Mrs. Simpson’s eyes snapped.  “Perhaps he’d pass for my son,” she remarked.

“Yes, easy,” said the tactful Mr. Mills.  “You can’t think what a difference it’s made to him.  That’s why I came to see you—­so you shouldn’t be startled.”

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Simpson.  “I’m much obliged.  But you might have spared yourself the trouble.  I should know my husband anywhere.”

“Ah, that’s what you think,” retorted Mr. Mills, with a smile; “but the barmaid at the Plume didn’t.  That’s what made me come to you.”

Mrs. Simpson gazed at him.

“I says to myself,” continued Mr. Mills, “’If she don’t know him, I’m certain his missis won’t, and I’d better——­’”

“You’d better go,” interrupted his hostess.

Mr. Mills started, and then, with much dignity, stalked after her to the door.

“As to your story, I don’t believe a word of it,” said Mrs. Simpson.  “Whatever else my husband is, he isn’t a fool, and he’d no more think of cutting off his whiskers and dyeing his hair than you would of telling the truth.”

“Seeing is believing,” said the offended Mr. Mills, darkly.

“I’ll wait till I do see, and then I sha’n’t believe,” was the reply.  “It is a put-up job between you and some other precious idiot, I expect.  But you can’t deceive me.  If your black-haired friend comes here, he’ll get it, I can tell you.”

She slammed the door on his protests and, returning to the parlour, gazed fiercely into the glass on the mantelpiece.  It reflected sixteen stone of honest English womanhood, a thin wisp of yellowish-grey hair, and a pair of faded eyes peering through clumsy spectacles.

“Son, indeed!” she said, her lips quivering.  “You wait till you come home, my lord!”

Mr. Simpson, with some forebodings, returned home an hour later.  To a man who loved peace and quietness the report of the indignant Mr. Mills was not of a reassuring nature.  He hesitated on the doorstep for a few seconds while he fumbled for his key, and then, humming unconcernedly, hung his hat in the passage and walked into the parlour.

The astonished scream of his wife warned him that Mr. Mills had by no means exaggerated.  She rose from her seat and, crouching by the fireplace, regarded him with a mixture of anger and dismay.

“It—­it’s all right, Milly,” said Mr. Simpson, with a smile that revealed a dazzling set of teeth.

“Who are you?” demanded Mrs. Simpson.  “How dare you call me by my Christian name.  It’s a good job for you my husband is not here.”

“He wouldn’t hurt me,” said Mr. Simpson, with an attempt at facetiousness.  “He’s the best friend I ever had.  Why, we slept in the same cradle.”

“I don’t want any of your nonsense,” said Mrs. Simpson.  “You get out of my house before I send for the police.  How dare you come into a respectable woman’s house in this fashion?  Be off with you.”