The String of Pearls (1850), p. 250

"Sir!"
"Stop. What an odd thing. Why, you are very—very—"
"Very what, sir?" said Todd, making a hideous face.
"Like the duke, or my fancy leads me astray. Wait a bit. Don't move."
Mundell placed his hands over his eyes for a moment, and then suddenly
withdrawing them he looked at Todd again.
"Yes, you are like the duke. How came you to be like a duke, the villain.
Oh, if I could but see my pearls."
"What duke, sir?"
"I would give £500—no, I mean £100, that is £50, to know what duke," screamed Mundell with vehemence. Then suddenly lapsing into quietness, he
added—"Shave me. Shave me, I will go to court, and St. James's shall ring
again with the story of my pearls. Lost! lost! lost! Did he abscond from
his wife with them, or was he murdered? I wonder? I wonder?—£8000
gone all at once. I might have borne such a loss by degrees, but d—n it—"
"Really, sir, if you will go on talking about pearls and dukes, the shaving
brush will go into your mouth, and there's no such thing as avoiding it."
"Confound you. Go on. Shave me and have done with it. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
John Mundell now contented himself by uttering drawn sighs, with now and
then the accompaniment of a hideous groan, while Todd lathered his face with
great affected care. The sighs and the groans both, however, ceased soon, and
Todd became aware that the eyes of John Mundell were fixed upon him with a
steady stare. No doubt, the usurer was recalling bit by bit to his memory the
features of the sham duke, and comparing them with Todd's. To be sure, upon
the occasion of his visit to Mundell Villa, Todd had taken every precaution to
disguise his features; but then it must be admitted that the features of the barber
were rather peculiar, and that John Mundell was professionally a more than
ordinary keen observer, and thus it was that, as Todd lathered away, he became
more and more impressed by the fact that there was a startling resemblance
between Todd and the nobleman who had borrowed £8000 upon the string of
pearls.
"What's your name?" he said.
"Todd."
"Humph! a well-to-do man."
"Poor as Job."
"How very like you are to a great man. Do you ever go to court? I think—I am sure I have seen you somewhere."
"Very likely," said Todd, "for I often go there."
"What, to court?"
"Nay, sir, not to court, but somewhere. Will you have the whiskers left
just as they are, or taken off entirely, sir?"
Tap! tap! came at the chamber door, and a boy peeped in. saying—
"Please, sir, the tailor has brought the things."

CHAPTER LIII.

THE MURDER OF THE USURER.

"Come in! Come in! More expense. More losses. As if an honest man, who only does what he can with his own, could not come to the court with a hope of meeting with a civil reception, unless he were decked out like a buffoon Come in. Well, who are you?"
"Augustus Snipes, sir, at your service. Brought home the clothes, sir. The
full dress suit you were so good as to order to be ready to-day, sir."