“Then, my good Stump, you will now tell me of this wonder all.”

It’s not much there is to tell, sir, and wat there is isn’t to his credit.  His father was my father’s brother.  My father was in the hoss line out Saint John’s Wood way—­in Lunnon, you know, sir—­and his father lived in our street and was a swell barber.  Uncle’d married a French young ‘ooman as was dressmakin’ and had been a lady’s maid; it’s along of his mother that he gets his Frenchness, you see.  He was an only son, he was, and they made a lot of him—­dressin’ him fine, and coddlin’ him, and sendin’ him to school like anythink.  Uncle was doin’ a big trade, you see, and makin’ money fast.  Then, when he was a young fellow of twenty or so, and after he’d served at barberin’ with his father for a couple of years, he took service with young Lord Cadmium—­ as had his ‘cousin’ livin’ in a willa down our way and came to uncle’s to be barbered frequent.  And wen Lord Cadmium went sudden-like over to the Continent, wishin’ to give his ‘cousin’ the slip, havin’ got sick of her, Stumps he went along.  That’s a matter of ten years ago, sir, and blessed if I’ve laid eyes on him since until I seed him here in New York to-day.  Uncle died better’n two year back, aunt havin’ died fust, and he left a tidy pot of money to Stumps; and I did hear that Stumps, who’d been barberin’ in Paris, had giv’ up work when he got the cash and had set up to be a gentleman, but I didn’t know as he’d set up to be a count too.  The like of this I never did see!”

“And you are then sure, you will swear, my good Stump, that this are the same man?”

“Swear, sir!  I’ll swear to it ’igh and low and all day long!  But I must be goin’, sir.  You will please to remember that the hoss will be ready for you at ten o’clock to-morrow mornin’, sharp.”

Jaune rushed down to Vandyke Brown’s studio for counsel as to whether he should go at once to the Count’s lodgings and charge him with fraud to his face, or should make the charge first to Madame Carthame.  But Brown was out.  Nor was he in old Madder’s studio, though about this time he was much more likely to be there than in his own.  Old Madder said that Brown had taken Rose over to Brooklyn, to the Philharmonic, and he believed that they were going to dinner at Mr. Mangan Brown’s afterward, and would not be in till late; and he seemed to be pretty grumpy about it.

Jaune fumed and fretted away what was left of the afternoon and a good part of the evening.  At last Brown and Rose came home, and Brown, with a very bad grace, suffered himself to be led away from old Madder’s threshold.  To do him justice, though, when he had heard the story that Jaune had to tell, he was all eagerness.  His advice was to make the attack instantly; and without more words they set off together, walking briskly through the chill air of the late October night.

As they were passing along Macdougal Street—­midway between Bleecker and Houston, in front of the row of pretty houses with verandas all over their fronts—­Jaune suddenly gripped Brown’s arm and drew him quickly within one of the little front yards and into the shadow of the high iron steps.