"Not against you at all," said Judge Enderby. "It's simply a matter of the best claim. Besides, you, who have everything in the world, would you turn this poor homeless young wanderer out of a house that he's never been in?" "Except by ancestral proxy," qualified Dr. Alderson. "How _mean_ of you!" She turned the fire of denunciatory eyes upon the archæologist. "You told me with your own lips that no family named Daddleskink was ever connected in the remotest degree with the house. You said the idea was as absurd as the name." "So it is." "Yet you turn around and declare that Mr. Daddleskink's claim is good." "_Whose_ claim?" "Mr. Daddleskink's." She indicated the Tyro with a scornful gesture. "Oh," she added, noting the other's obvious bewilderment, "I see you didn't know his real name." "I? I've known him and his name all his life." "And it isn't Daddleskink?" The learned archæologist lapsed against the rail and gave way to wild mirth. "Wh--where on earth d-d-did you gu-gu-get such a notion?" he quavered, when he could speak. "He told me, himself." "I? Never!" The Tyro's face was as that of a babe for innocence. "_You--didn't--tell--me--your--name--was--Daddleskink?_" "Certainly not. I simply asked if you didn't think it a misfortune to be named Daddleskink, and you jumped to the conclusion that it was my name and my misfortune." "Perhaps you didn't tell me, either, that your friends called you 'Smith,'" she said ominously. "So they do." "Why should they call you 'Smith' if your name isn't Daddleskink?" she demanded, with an effect of unanswerable logic. "Because my name _is_ Smith." "Permit me to present," said Lord Guenn, who had been quietly but joyously appreciative of the duel, "my ancestral friend, Mr. Alexander Forsyth Smith." "Why didn't you tell me your real name?" Little Miss Grouch's offended regard was fixed upon the Tyro. "Well, you remember, you made fun of the honorable cognomen of Smith when we first met." "That is no excuse." "And you were mysterious as an owl about your own identity." "I could see no occasion for revealing it." The delicately modeled nose was now quite far in the air. "So I thought I'd furnish a really interesting name for you to amuse yourself with. I'm sorry you don't care for it." Little Miss Grouch's limpid and lofty consideration passed from the anxious physiognomy of the speaker to the mirthful countenances of the other three. "I'm not sure that I shall ever speak to any of you again," she stated, and, turning her back, marched away from them with lively resentment expressed in every supple line of her figure. "Young man," said Judge Enderby to his client, as the male quartette, thus cavalierly dismissed, passed on, "will you take the advice of an old man?" "Have I paid for it?" inquired the Tyro. "You have not. Gratis advice, this. The most valuable kind." "Shoot, sir." "Don't let two blades of grass grow under your feet where one grew before." "But--"