These encounters were so much a part of their nature that Eager found it impossible to stop them entirely. They had fought continually since ever they could crawl within arm's length of one another. Where other boys might have argued to ill-temper, these two simply closed without wasting a word, and having settled the momentary dispute, _vi et armis_, were as friendly as ever. They both possessed fiery tempers, and had never seen or dreamt of the necessity of controlling them. But on the other hand, they never bore malice, and the cause of dispute, and the blows that settled it, were forgotten the moment the god of battle had awarded the palm. They were very closely matched, and no great bodily harm came of it, though to the spectators it looked fearsome enough. Bit by bit, utilising and turning to best account their natural powers and proclivities, Eager got hold of them, to the point at all events of inducing their feet into more reasonable upward paths. But as to coming one step nearer to the reading of Sir Denzil's puzzle, he had to acknowledge completest failure. He studied the boys, from his own intense interest in them, as no other had ever had the opportunity of studying them. And he discussed his observation of them with Sir Denzil time and again. But, so far, there were no ultra indications of disposition in either of them so marked as to offer any reasonable basis for deduction. For men without a single common view of life, he and Sir Denzil had become quite friendly. A verbal tussle with the old heathen, in which each spoke his mind without reserve, always braced him up, just as the boys' more primitive method of argument seemed to do them good. The old gentleman always greeted him, over a pinch of snuff, with an expression of regret that he had not yet succeeded in settling the matter out of hand by drowning one of his pupils. "Well, Mr. Eager," he would say, "no progress yet?" "Oh, plenty. We're improving every day." "H'mph If you'd only drown one of them for me----" "I've a better use for them than that." "I doubt it. Ill stock on either side, though I say it." "As the twig is bent----" "Break one off and I'd thank you. Here is possibly a further complication,"--tapping with his snuff-box a small news-sheet he had been reading when Eager came in. "What is that, sir?" "That fool Quixande has got into a mess in Paris--got a sword through his ribs." "Quixande?" queried Eager, not perceiving the relevancy of the matter. "He has no issue--none that can inherit, that is. One of those whelps is his only sister's son and so comes in for the title. Which?" "H'm, yes. It's mighty awkward. I suppose you couldn't make one of them Earl of Quixande and the other Carron of Carne?" "It would be a solution. But which? Which? Such matters are not settled by guesswork." "We can only wait and see." "If Quixande dies we cannot wait--the succession cannot."