I can imagine myself
falling in love with her when I was your age. I wasnt a bad-looking
young fellow myself in those days. _[Looking at the other]_ Curious
that we should both have gone the same way.
THE MAN. You and she the same way! What do you mean?
TARLETON. Both got stout, I mean.
THE MAN. Would you have had her deny herself food?
TARLETON. No: it wouldnt have been any use. It's constitutional.
No matter how little you eat you put on flesh if youre made that way.
_[He resumes his study of the earlier photograph]._
THE MAN. Is that all the feeling that rises in you at the sight of
the face you once knew so well?
TARLETON. _[too much absorbed in the portrait to heed him]_ Funny
that I cant remember! Let this be a lesson to you, young man. I
could go into court tomorrow and swear I never saw that face before in
my life if it wasnt for that brooch _[pointing to the photograph]._
Have you got that brooch, by the way? _[The man again resorts to his
breast pocket]._ You seem to carry the whole family property in that
pocket.
THE MAN. _[producing a brooch]_ Here it is to prove my bona fides.
TARLETON. _[pensively putting the photographs on the table and taking
the brooch]_ I bought that brooch in Cheapside from a man with a
yellow wig and a cast in his left eye.
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