"A very touching fake," said Max.
"Yes; thanks to the skill of the reporters who wrote up his story," cried
Breffny.
"We visited many morgues in search of her, Louise and I," said I, quoting
the most effective passage of the narrative.
"I did know of one case of a husband starting off at random to find his
runaway wife," observed Breffny.
"As there's yet an hour to midnight, we have time for one of your stories."
"I can tell this in five minutes. All I know of the story is the beginning.
No one ever heard of the end. It was like this:
"When I lived in Glasgow, I knew a young fellow there who was timekeeper in
a shipyard. He was a very quiet, pleasant boy, so bashful that I used to
wonder how he had ever summoned the courage to propose to the pretty Scotch
girl who was his wife. As I got to know more of the pair, I divined the
secret. Although poor, he was of good Glasgow parentage, while the wife had
been a country girl so eager to get to the city that she had courted him
while he was on a visit to the village in which she had lived. She had
merely used him as a means for finding the life for which she had longed.
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