"It isn't his voice," muttered the landlady, still staring; "but his eyes are the same."
"May I ask you to go?" said Franklin. "You are trespassing."
Mrs. Benker shook her rusty black bonnet.
"You may change your hair from red to black," she declared, "and you may shave off a ginger beard, but you can't alter your eyes.
Mr. Wilson you are, and that I'll swear to in a court of law before a judge and jury.
Let them say what they will about me being a liar."
"Of what are you talking, woman?"
"Of you, sir; and I hope I may mention that you were more respectful when you boarded with me."
"Boarded with you!" Franklin stared, and spoke in an astonished tone.
"Why, I never boarded with you in my life!"
"Oh, Mr. Wilson, how can you?
What about my little house in Lambeth, and the dear boy—my son Alexander—you were so fond of?"
"You are raving."
"I'm as sane as you are," said the landlady, her color rising, "and a deal more respectable, if all were known.
Why you should deny me to my face is more than I can make out, Mr. Wilson."
"My name is not Wilson."
"And I say it is, sir."
Both the man and the woman eyed one another firmly. Then Franklin motioned Mrs. Benker to a seat on a mossy bank.
"We can talk better sitting," said he. "I should like an explanation of this.
You say that my name is Wilson, and that I boarded with you."
"At Lambeth.
I'll take my oath to it."
"Had your boarder red hair and a red beard?"
"Red as a tomato.
But you can buy wigs and false beards.
Eyes, as I say, you cannot change."
"Had this Wilson eyes like mine?" asked Frankly eagerly.
"There ain't a scrap of difference, Mr. Wilson.
Your eyes are the same now as they were then."
"One moment.
Had this man you think me to be two teeth missing in his lower jaw—two front teeth?"
"He had.
Not that his teeth were of the best."
Franklin drew down his lip.
"You will see that I have all my teeth."
"H'm!" Mrs. Benker sniffed. "False teeth can be bought."
"I fear you would find these teeth only too genuine," said the man quietly. "But I quite understand your mistake."
"My mistake?" Mrs. Benker shook her head vehemently. "I'm not the one to make mistakes."
"On this occasion you have done so; but the mistake is pardonable.
Mrs.—Mrs.—what is your name?"
"Mrs. Benker, sir.
And you know it."
"Excuse me, I do not know it.
The man who was your lodger, and whom you accuse me of being, is my brother."
"Your brother!" echoed the landlady, amazed.
"Yes, and a bad lot he is.
Never did a hand's turn in all his life.
I daresay while he was with you he kept the most irregular hours?"
"He did—most irregular."
"Out all night at times, and in all day?