"Your grace," he observed sternly, when the elaborate entry had been made and deliberately revised, "may trust me to take the steps, if any, necessary to clear up this matter." He turned from the fuming Spaniard, and addressed himself pointedly to the rest of the company. "Do I understand," he asked approaching the extraordinary complication with an absence of emotion which suggested that the tackling of such questions was with him an every-day occurrence, "do I understand that there is some doubt as to the identity of Lord Quorn?" "Precisely," replied the duke. Mr. Doutfire by an authoritative wave of his notebook enjoined the Castilian despot to silence. "I ask you, sir," he said, pointedly to Gage, "whether you are or are not Lord Quorn?" "Not I," was the prompt and comparatively cheerful answer. Mr. Doutfire accepted it with a suggestion of reserving all comment on the surprising statement till a later stage. "Perhaps, then, you will be good enough to tell me who is," he said. Gage pointed with his thumb to Peckover. "If it's not this gentleman, I don't know who it is," he replied indifferently. "Nothing of the nobility about me," Peckover declared in answer to Doutfire's interrogative glance. "I tell you that is the individual, over there," indicating Quorn, who was now sufficiently recovered from the ducal onslaught to laugh jeeringly. "I like that!" he exclaimed. "Making me Lord Quorn when it comes useful." "You are Peckover?" demanded Mr. Doutfire confidently. "If you say so," was the reply. "I do say so," said Doutfire, whose reputation clearly hinged on the correctness of the statement. "I knew he was not Lord Quorn," put in Lady Ormstork. "He told me he was," observed Miss Buffkin. Mr. Doutfire turned a threateningly suspicious glance on the stolid Quorn, then pursed his mouth with a pitying smile of non-acceptance as he shook his head emphatically at the young lady. "He's Peckover all right, miss," he assured her. Then glared at Quorn as though challenging him to deny it. And Quorn, although not overburdened with intellect, had sense enough to recognize that his game just then was to lie low and admit nothing if he could help it. "My dear Ulrica," said Lady Ormstork in her superior fashion, "how could you allow yourself to be taken in by such a transparent pretence? Does the person look in the least like Lord Quorn?" "Or any other nobleman?" supplemented Doutfire, with menacing sarcasm. "Of course," he added, in a more uncompromisingly professional tone, "if he has been defrauding any of you ladies and gentlemen, under the false pretence that he is Lord Quorn, I'll take him now to Bunbury against your preferring a charge against him." His enquiring look round meeting with no response, save a scornful smile from Quorn, Doutfire proceeded, eyeing the suspect malevolently, "I don't know how he comes to be here, in this house, but----"