IX
the episode of the japanned dispatch-box
'Sey,' my brother-in-law said next spring, 'I'm sick and tired of London! Let's shoulder our wallets at once, and I will to some distant land, where no man doth me know.'
'Mars or Mercury?' I inquired; 'for, in our own particular planet, I'm afraid you'll find it just a trifle difficult for Sir Charles Vandrift to hide his light under a bushel.'
'Oh, I'll manage it,' Charles answered. 'What's the good of being a millionaire, I should like to know, if you're always obliged to "behave as sich"? I shall travel incog. 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
