"I--I know--I am sometimes apt to make mistakes--But I am sure your name is Bulmer ?" "Not that ever I or my godfathers heard of--my name was Bottom half an hour ago--perhaps that makes the confusion," answered the Earl, with very cold and distant politeness;--"Permit me to pass, sir, that I may attend the lady." "Quite unnecessary," answered Lady Binks; "I leave you to adjust your mutual recollections with your new old friend, my lord--he seems to have something to say." So saying, the lady walked on, not perhaps sorry of an opportunity to show apparent indifference for his lordship's society in the presence of one who had surprised them in what might seem a moment of exuberant intimacy.
"You detain me, sir," said the Earl of Etherington to Mr.Cargill, who, bewildered and uncertain, still kept himself placed so directly before the young nobleman, as to make it impossible for him to pass, without absolutely pushing him to one side.

"I must really attend the lady," he added, making another effort to walk on.
"Young man," said Mr.Cargill, "you cannot disguise yourself from me.

I am sure--my mind assures me, that you are that very Bulmer whom Heaven hath sent here to prevent crime." "And you," said Lord Etherington, "whom my mind assures me I never saw in my life, are sent hither by the devil, I think, to create confusion." "I beg pardon, sir," said the clergyman, staggered by the calm and pertinacious denial of the Earl--"I beg pardon if I am in a mistake--that is, if I am _really_ in a mistake--but I am not--I am sure I am not!--That look--that smile--I am NOT mistaken.

You _are_ Valentine Bulmer--the very Valentine Bulmer whom I--but I will not make your private affairs any part of this exposition--enough, you _are_ Valentine Bulmer." "Valentine ?--Valentine ?" answered Lord Etherington, impatiently,--"I am neither Valentine nor Orson--I wish you good-morning, sir." "Stay, sir, stay, I charge you," said the clergyman; "if you are unwilling to be known yourself, it may be because you have forgotten who I am--Let me name myself as the Reverend Josiah Cargill, minister of St.
Ronan's." "If you bear a character so venerable, sir," replied the young nobleman,--"in which, however, I am not in the least interested,--I think when you make your morning draught a little too potent, it might be as well for you to stay at home and sleep it off, before coming into company." "In the name of Heaven, young gentleman," said Mr.Cargill, "lay aside this untimely and unseemly jesting! and tell me if you be not--as I cannot but still believe you to be--that same youth, who, seven years since, left in my deposit a solemn secret, which, if I should unfold to the wrong person, woe would be my own heart, and evil the consequences which might ensue!" "You are very pressing with me, sir," said the Earl; "and, in exchange, I will be equally frank with you .-- I am not the man whom you mistake me for, and you may go seek him where you will--It will be still more lucky for you if you chance to find your own wits in the course of your researches; for I must tell you plainly, I think they are gone somewhat astray." So saying, with a gesture expressive of a determined purpose to pass on, Mr.Cargill had no alternative but to make way, and suffer him to proceed.
The worthy clergyman stood as if rooted to the ground, and, with his usual habit of thinking aloud exclaimed to himself, "My fancy has played me many a bewildering trick, but this is the most extraordinary of them all!--What can this young man think of me?
It must have been my conversation with that unhappy young lady that has made such an impression upon me as to deceive my very eyesight, and causes me to connect with her history the face of the next person that I met--What _must_ the stranger think of me!" "Why, what every one thinks of thee that knows thee, prophet," said the friendly voice of Touchwood, accompanying his speech with an awakening slap on the clergyman's shoulder; "and that is, that thou art an unfortunate philosopher of Laputa, who has lost his flapper in the throng .-- Come along--having me once more by your side, you need fear nothing.

Why, now I look at you closer, you look as if you had seen a basilisk--not that there is any such thing, otherwise I must have seen it myself, in the course of my travels--but you seem pale and frightened--What the devil is the matter ?" "Nothing," answered the clergyman, "except that I have even this very moment made an egregious fool of myself." "Pooh, pooh, that is nothing to sigh over, prophet .-- Every man does so at least twice in the four-and-twenty hours," said Touchwood.
"But I had nearly betrayed to a stranger, a secret deeply concerning the honour of an ancient family." "That was wrong, Doctor," said Touchwood; "take care of that in future; and, indeed, I would advise you not to speak even to your beadle, Johnie Tirlsneck, until you have assured yourself, by at least three pertinent questions and answers, that you have the said Johnie corporeally and substantially in presence before you, and that your fancy has not invested some stranger with honest Johnie's singed periwig and threadbare brown joseph--Come along--come along." So saying, he hurried forward the perplexed clergyman, who in vain made all the excuses he could think of in order to effect his escape from the scene of gaiety, in which he was so unexpectedly involved.