N! The morning is going on, too, and still Mr. Mills isn't here." He
took a quill pen and drew a half sheet of paper toward him, poised his
pen a moment and then wrote quickly. "What a pity I can't sign for
him," he said, passing his paper over to the clerk. "Look
at that; now even you, Timmins, though you have
seen Mr. Mills's handwriting ten thousand times, would be ready to
swear that the signature was
his, would you not?" Timmins looked scrutinisingly
at it. "Well, I'm sure, sir! What
a forger you would have made!" he said admiringly. "I would have sworn
that was Mr. Mills's own hand of write. It's wonderful, sir." Mr.
Taynton sighed, and took
the paper again.
"Yes, it is like, isn't it?" he said, "and it's so easy to do. Luckily
forgers don't know the way to forge properly." "And what might that
be, sir?" asked Timmins. "Why,
to throw yourself
mentally into the nature of the man whose handwriting you wish to
forge. Of course one has
to know the handwriting thoroughly well, but if one does that one just
has to visualise it, and then, as I said, project oneself into the
other, not laboriously copy the handwriting. Let's try another.
Ah, who is that letter from? Mrs. Assheton isn't it. Let me look at
the signature just once again." Mr. Taynton closed his eyes a moment
after looking at it. Then he took his quill, and wrote quickly.
"You would swear to that, too, would you not, Timmins?" he asked.
"Why, God bless me yes, sir," said he. "Swear to it on the book." The
door opened and as Godfrey Mills came in, Mr. Taynton tweaked the
paper out of Timmins's
hand, and tore it up. It might perhaps se
