His collar hid it at ordinary times. I had seen it
often when we were bathing together.
"Has George a mole like that?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Oh, no."
"You would have noticed it if he had?"
"Yes," I said. "Oh, yes."
"I'm glad of that," said George. "It would be a nuisance not to be able
to prove one's own identity."
That seemed to satisfy them all. They couldn't get away from it. It
seemed to me that from now on the thing was a walk-over. And I think
George felt the same, for, when old Marshall asked him if he had had
breakfast, he said he had not, went below, and pitched in as if he
hadn't a care in the world.
Everything went right till lunch-time. George sat in the shade on the
foredeck talking to Stella most of the time. When the gong went and the
rest had started to go below, he drew me back. He was beaming.
"It's all right," he said. "What did I tell you?"
"What did you tell me?"
"Why, about Stella. Didn't I say that Alfred would fix things for
George? I told her she looked worried, and got her to tell me what the
trouble was. And then----"
"You must have shown a flash of speed if you got her to confide in you
after knowing you for about two hours."
"Perhaps I did," said George modestly, "I had no notion, till I became
him, what a persuasive sort of chap my brother Alfred was. Anyway, she
told me all about it, and I started in to show her that George was a
pretty good sort of fellow on the whole, who oughtn't to be turned down
for what was evidently merely temporary insanity.
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