Knowing his likeness to the family of Lord Polperro he
palmed himself off on them as a distant relative, just come back
from the colonies; they were silly enough to make things soft for
him. He seems to have got money, no end of it, out of Lord P. No
doubt he was jolly frightened when you spotted him, and you know how
he met you once or twice and tipped you. That's the story of your
Uncle Clover, Polly."
The girl was impressed. She could believe anything ill of Mrs.
Clover's husband. Her astonishment at learning that he was a lord
had never wholly subsided. That he should be a cunning rascal seemed
vastly more probable.
"But what about that letter you sent--eh?" pursued Gammon with an
artful look. "Didn't you address it to Lord P. himself? So you did,
Polly. But listen to this. By that time Lord P. and his people had
found out Clover's little game; never mind _how_, but they had. You
remember that he wouldn't come again to meet you at Lincoln's Inn.
Good reason, old girl; he had had to make himself scarce. Lord P.
had set a useful friend of his--that's Greenacre--to look into
Clover's history.
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