“Well, I think we had better be going, Mr. Palfrey,” said the mother, rising more slowly.

Mr. Freely, whose complexion had become decidedly yellower during the last half-hour, did not resist this proposition.  He hoped they should meet again “under happier circumstances.”

“It’s my belief the man is his brother,” said Letitia, when they were all on their way home.

“Nonsense!” said Mr. Palfrey.  “Freely’s got no brother—­he’s said so many and many a time; he’s an orphan; he’s got nothing but uncles—­leastwise, one.  What’s it matter what an idiot says?  What call had Freely to tell lies?”

Letitia tossed her head and was silent.

Mr. Freely, left alone with his affectionate brother Jacob, brooded over the possibility of luring him out of the town early the next morning, and getting him conveyed to Gilsbrook without further betrayals.  But the thing was difficult.  He saw clearly that if he took Jacob himself, his absence, conjoined with the disappearance of the stranger, would either cause the conviction that he was really a relative, or would oblige him to the dangerous course of inventing a story to account for his disappearance, and his own absence at the same time.  David groaned.  There come occasions when falsehood is felt to be inconvenient.  It would, perhaps, have been a longer-headed device, if he had never told any of those clever fibs about his uncles, grand and otherwise; for the Palfreys were simple people, and shared the popular prejudice against lying.  Even if he could get Jacob away this time, what security was there that he would not come again, having once found the way?  O guineas!  O lozenges! what enviable people those were who had never robbed their mothers, and had never told fibs!  David spent a sleepless night, while Jacob was snoring close by.  Was this the upshot of travelling to the Indies, and acquiring experience combined with anecdote?

He rose at break of day, as he had once before done when he was in fear of Jacob, and took all gentle means to rouse this fatal brother from his deep sleep; he dared not be loud, because his apprentice was in the house, and would report everything.  But Jacob was not to be roused.  He fought out with his fist at the unknown cause of disturbance, turned over, and snored again.  He must be left to wake as he would.  David, with a cold perspiration on his brow, confessed to himself that Jacob could not be got away that day.

Mr. Palfrey came over to Grimworth before noon, with a natural curiosity to see how his future son-in-law got on with the stranger to whom he was so benevolently inclined.  He found a crowd round the shop.  All Grimworth by this time had heard how Freely had been fastened on by an idiot, who called him “Brother Zavy”; and the younger population seemed to find the singular stranger an unwearying source of fascination, while the householders dropped in one by one to inquire into the incident.