"You're not? What a darned shame! Why, you ought to be a Dook. You'd make a better one than me!" The family solicitor was half-hidden behind that morning's _Times_; as Jack spoke, he hid himself entirely. Claude, for his part, saw nothing to laugh at. The Duke's face was earnest. The Duke's eyes were dark and kind. Like Claude himself, he had the long Lafont nose, though sun and wind had peeled it red; and a pair of shaggy brown eyebrows gave strength at all events to the hairy face. Claude was thinking that half-an-hour at Truefitt's, a pot of vaseline, and the best attentions of his own tailors in Maddox Street would make a new man of Happy Jack. Not that his suit was on a par with his abominable wideawake. He could not have worn these clothes in the bush. They were obviously his best; and, as obviously, ready-made. Happy Jack was meantime apostrophising his pet. "Ah! but you was with me when that there gentleman found me, wasn't you, Livingstone? You should tell the other gentleman about that. We never thought we was a Dook, did we? We thought ourselves a blooming ordinary common man. My colonial oath, and so we are! But you recollect that last bu'st of ours, Livingstone? I mean the time we went to knock down the thirty-one pound cheque what never got knocked down properly at all. We had a rare thirst on us----" Mr. Cripps in his corner smacked down the _Times_ on his knees. "Look there!" he cried. "Did ever you see such grass as that, Jack? You've nothing like it in New South Wales. I declare it does my old heart good to see an honest green field again!" Jack looked out for an instant only. "Ten sheep to the acre," said he. "Wonderful, isn't it, Livingstone? And you an' me used to ten acres to the sheep! But we were talking about that last little spree; you want your Uncle Claude to hear all about it, I see you do; you're not the cat to make yourself out better than what you are; not you, Livingstone! Well, as I was saying----" "Those red-tiled roofs are simply charming!" exclaimed the solicitor. "A perfect poem," said Claude. "And that May-tree in full bloom!" "A living lyric," said Claude. It was really apple-blossom. "And you," cried the Duke to his cat, "you're a comic song, that's what _you_ are! Tell 'em you won't be talked down, Livingstone. Tell this gentleman he's got to hear the worst. Tell him that when the other gentleman found us"--the solicitor raised his _Times_ with a shrug--"one of us was drunk, drunk, drunk; and the other was watching over him--and the other was my little cat!" "You're joking, of course?" said Claude, with a flush. "Not me, mister. That's a fact. You see, it was like this----" "Thanks," said Claude hastily; "but I'd far rather not know." "Why not, old toucher?" "It would hurt me," said Claude, with a shudder. "Hurt you! Hear that, Livingstone? It would hurt him to hear how we knocked down our last little cheque! That's the best one _I_'ve heard since I left the ship!"