Clever, extremely clever; but--we begin to see through him."
And he chuckled to himself quietly.
Next day, on the hillside, we came upon our stranger again,
occupied as before in peering into the rocks, and sounding them
with a hammer. Charles nudged me and whispered, "I have it this
time. He's posing as a geologist."
I took a good look at the man. By now, of course, we had some
experience of Colonel Clay in his various disguises; and I could
observe that while the nose, the hair, and the beard were varied,
the eyes and the build remained the same as ever. He was a trifle
stouter, of course, being got up as a man of between forty and
fifty; and his forehead was lined in a way which a less consummate
artist than Colonel Clay could easily have imitated. But I felt we
had at least some grounds for our identification; it would not do
to dismiss the suggestion of Clayhood at once as a flight of fancy.
His wife was sitting near, upon a bare boss of rock, reading a
volume of poems. Capital variant, that, a volume of poems! Exactly
suited the selected type of a cultivated family. White Heather and
Mrs. Granton never used to read poems. But that was characteristic
of all Colonel Clay's impersonations, and Mrs. Clay's too--for I
suppose I must call her so.
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