Was it or was it not the Mr. Thompson of the day before? Yes! no!---- No! yes! It would have been, only that it could not be. The alibi was too clearly proved: Lady Margaret had spent the preceding evening with _her_ Mr. Thompson in one place, and I myself with _my_ Mr. Thompson in another. Different they must be, but oh, how alike! I am too short-sighted to be cognizant of each separate feature. But there it was, the same common height and common size, and common physiognomy, wigged, whiskered, and perfumed to a hair! The self-same sober magnificence of dress, the same cut and colour of coat, the same waistcoat of brocade brodé--of a surety they must have employed one identical tailor, and one measure had served for both! Chains, studs, brooches, rings--even the eye-glass spectacles were there. Had he (this he) stolen them? Or did the Thompsons use them alternately, upon the principle of ride and tie?
In conversation the similarity was even more striking--safe, civil, prosy, dosy, and yet not without a certain small pretension. The Mr. Thompson of Friday talked as his predecessor of Thursday had done, of Malibran and Grisi, "Paracelsus" and "Ion," politics and geraniums. He alluded to a recipe (doubtless the famous recipe for mutton pies) which he had promised to write out for the benefit of the housekeeper, and would beyond all question have dosed over one young lady's verses, and fallen asleep to another's singing, if there had happened to be such narcotics as music and poetry in dear Lady Margaret's drawing-room. Mind and body, the two Mr. Thompsons were as alike as two peas, as two drops of water, as two Emperor-of-Morocco butterflies, as two death's-head moths. Could they have been twin brothers, like the Dromios of the old drama? or was the vicinity of the Regent's Park peopled with Cockney anglers--Thompsons whose daughters had married Brownes?
The resemblance haunted me all night. I dreamt of Brownes and Thompsons, and to freshen my fancy and sweep away the shapes by which I was beset, I resolved to take a drive. Accordingly, I ordered my little phaeton, and, perplexed and silent, bent my way to call upon my fair friend, Miss Mortimer. Arriving at Queen's-bridge Cottage, I was met in the rose-covered porch by the fair Frances. "Come this way, if you please," said she, advancing towards the dining-room; "we are late at luncheon to-day. My friend, Mrs. Browne, and her father, Mr. Thompson, our old neighbours when we lived in Welbeck Street, have been here for this week past, and he is so fond of fishing that he will scarcely leave the river even to take his meals, although for aught I can hear he never gets so much as a bite."