daughter said as much, when I asked for
particulars about the jugglers. 'Father will tell
you, sir. He's a wonderful man for his age; and
he expresses himself beautifully.' Penelope's
own words— blushing divinely. Not even my
respect for you prevented me from—never mind;
I knew her when she was a child, and she's none
the worse for it. Let's be serious. What did
the jugglers do?"

I was something dissatisfied with my daughter
—not for letting Mr. Franklin kiss her; Mr.
Franklin was welcome to that—but for forcing
me to tell her foolish story at second hand.
However, there was no help for it now but to
mention the circumstances. Mr. Franklin's
merriment all died away as I went on. He sat
knitting his eyebrows, and twisting his beard.
When I had done, he repeated after me two of
the questions which the chief juggler had put to
the boy— seemingly for the purpose of fixing
them well in his mind.

"' Is it on the road to this house, and on no
other, that the English gentleman will travel
to-day?' 'Has the English gentleman got
It about him?' I suspect," says Mr. Franklin,
pulling a little sealed paper parcel out of his
pocket, "that 'It' means this. And 'this,'
Betteredge, means my uncle Herncastle's famous
Diamond."

"Good Lord, sir!" I broke out, " how do you
come to be in charge of the wicked Colonel's
Diamond?"

"The wicked Colonel's will has left his
Diamond as a birthday present to my cousin
Rachel," says Mr. Franklin. " And my father,
as the wicked Colonel's executor, has given it
in charge to me to bring down here."

If the sea, then oozing in smoothly over the
Shivering Sand, had been changed into dry land
before my own eyes, I doubt if I could have
been more surprised than I was when Mr.
Franklin spoke those words.

"The Colonel's Diamond left to Miss Rachel!"
says I. "And your father, sir, the Colonel's
executor! Why, I would have laid any bet you
like, Mr. Franklin, that your father wouldn't
have touched the Colonel with a pair of tongs!"

"Strong language, Betteredge! What was
there against the Colonel? He belonged to
your time, not to mine. Tell me what you
know about him, and I'll tell you how my father
came to be his executor, and more besides. I
have made some discoveries in London about
my uncle Herncastle and his Diamond, which
have rather an ugly look to my eyes; and I
want you to confirm them. You called him
the 'wicked Colonel' just now. Search your
memory, my old friend, and tell me why."

I saw he was in earnest, and I told him.

Here follows the substance of what I said,
written out entirely for your benefit. Pay
attention to it, or you will be all abroad, when we
get deeper into the story. Clear your mind of
the children, or the dinner, or the new bonnet,
or what not. Try if you can't forget politics,
horses, prices in the City, and grievances at the
club. I hope you won't take this freedom on
my part amiss; it's only a way I have of
appealing to the gentle reader. Lord! haven't I
seen you with the greatest authors in your
hands, and don't I know how ready your attention
is to wander when it's a book that asks for
it, instead of a person?

I spoke, a little way back, of my lady's father,
the old lord with the short temper and the long
tongue. He had five children in all. Two sons
to begin with; then, after a long time, his wife
broke out breeding again, and the three young
ladies came briskly one after the other, as fast
as the nature of things would permit; my
mistress, as before mentioned, being the youngest
and best of the three. Of the two sons, the
eldest, Arthur, inherited the title and estates.
The second, the Honourable John, got a fine
fortune left him by a relative, and went into the
army.

It's an ill bird, they say, that fouls its own
nest. I look on the noble family of the
Herncastles as being my nest; and I shall take it as
a favour if I am not expected to enter into
particulars on the subject of the Honourable John.
He was, I honestly believe, one of the greatest
blackguards that ever lived. I can hardly say
more or less for him than that. He went into
the army, beginning in the Guards. He had to
leave the Guards before he was two-and-twenty
—never mind why. They are very strict
in the army, and they were too strict for the
Honourable John. He went out to India to
see whether they were equally strict there, and
to try a little active service. In the matter of
bravery (to give him his due), he was a mixture
of bull-dog and game-cock, with a dash of the
savage. He was at the taking of Seringapatam.
Soon afterwards he changed into another
regiment, and, in course of time, changed again into
a third. In the third he got his last step as
lieutenant-colonel, and, getting that, got also a
sunstroke, and came home to England.

He came back with a character that closed
the doors of all his family against him, my lady
(then just married) taking the lead, and
declaring (with Sir John's approval, of course)
that her brother should never enter any house
of hers. There was more than one slur on the
Colonel that made people shy of him; but the
blot of the Diamond is all I need mention here.

It was said he had got possession of his
Indian jewel by means which, bold as he was,
he didn't dare acknowledge. He never
attempted to sell it—not being in need of money,
and not (to give him his due again) making
money an object. He never gave it away; he
never even showed it to any living soul. Some
said he was afraid of its getting him into a
difficulty with the military authorities; others
(very ignorant indeed of the real nature of the
man) said he was afraid, if he showed it, of its
costing him his life.

There was, perhaps, a grain of truth mixed
up with this last report. It was false to say
that he was afraid; but it was a fact that his
life had been twice threatened in India; and it