CHAPTER VI.
Keeping my private sentiments to myself, I respectfully requested Mr.
Franklin to go on.

Mr.Franklin replied, "Don't fidget, Betteredge," and went on.
Our young gentleman's first words informed me that his discoveries, concerning the wicked Colonel and the Diamond, had begun with a visit which he had paid (before he came to us) to the family lawyer, at Hampstead.

A chance word dropped by Mr.Franklin, when the two were alone, one day, after dinner, revealed that he had been charged by his father with a birthday present to be taken to Miss Rachel.

One thing led to another; and it ended in the lawyer mentioning what the present really was, and how the friendly connexion between the late Colonel and Mr.Blake, senior, had taken its rise.

The facts here are really so extraordinary, that I doubt if I can trust my own language to do justice to them.