I'm dog-tired of being
dogged by these endless impostors."
And, indeed, we had passed through a most painful winter. Colonel
Clay had stopped away for some months, it is true, and for my own
part, I will confess, since it wasn't _my_ place to pay the piper, I
rather missed the wonted excitement than otherwise. But Charles had
grown horribly and morbidly suspicious. He carried out his principle
of "distrusting everybody and disbelieving everything," till life
was a burden to him. He spotted impossible Colonel Clays under a
thousand disguises; he was quite convinced he had frightened his
enemy away at least a dozen times over, beneath the varying garb
of a fat club waiter, a tall policeman, a washerwoman's boy, a
solicitor's clerk, the Bank of England beadle, and the collector
of water-rates. He saw him as constantly, and in as changeful forms,
as mediaeval saints used to see the devil. Amelia and I really
began to fear for the stability of that splendid intellect; we
foresaw that unless the Colonel Clay nuisance could be abated
somehow, Charles might sink by degrees to the mental level of a
common or ordinary Stock-Exchange plunger.
So, when my brother-in-law announced his intention of going away
incog. to parts unknown, on the succeeding Saturday, Amelia and
I felt a flush of relief from long-continued tension.
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