There was no need to do so. Hardly had I spoken when the defunct Michael McCaffrey's legacy to posterity joined us in the drawing-room. It was a mouse-colored little brat, with hair that looked like blankets, watery eyes that seemed to be edged with pink tape, a sticky face and hands, the dirtiness of which would probably be called picturesque in Italy, and in somebody else's drawing-room, and the delightful aspect of those dear little things that play about the gutters of the east side. Its nose was disgusting, and when I say that I do not refer to the shape of the organ. The child ran up immediately to a green velvet ottoman and began affectionately rubbing it the wrong way with the sticky hands. "Ga-ga!" it said. "Ga-ga! Ga-ga!" "Come away!" I cried, scenting the ruin of the ottoman. "Come here, dear," said Letitia gently, but the child paid not the slightest heed. "I hadn't seen it before, Archie, as it was playing in the street when I called on Mrs. McCaffrey. It isn't--it isn't"--in a disappointed tone--"it isn't a bit cute." "Ga-ga! Ga-ga!" shouted the brat. "Mrs. McCaffrey must not allow the child to run wild," I said sternly. "We can't do with it in the drawing-room, Letitia. It must stay with its mother. You must insist upon that. It is certainly not an ornament to a room. A little cold water and some soap--" "I wonder if it is a boy or a girl," mused Letitia, as she pulled the hands of the brat from the green velvet ottoman to which they stuck. "Mrs. McCaffrey didn't tell me. How _can_ I find out?" "Ask Miriam," I said sarcastically. "She ought to know." "You can always tell whether cats are gentlemen or ladies by the shape of the head," Letitia went on irrelevantly, "but children are puzzles. This dirty little thing looks like a boy, Archie. I'm quite sure that it can't be a girl. I forgot to ask, and we really ought to know, don't you think?" At that moment a loud voice was heard calling, "Letitia! Letitia!" And then: "Letitia! Where on earth is Letitia?" For a minute after there was dead silence. Letitia flushed, and an expression of violent anger dawned upon her face. I was too amazed to say anything. After what my wife had told me of Mrs. McCaffrey's bitter antipathy to a change of name, this looked like revenge. She undoubtedly proposed to show Letitia that she had no intention of changing _her_ name. The child ran quickly to its mother, and we were left alone, in a tumult of astonishment. "You must go and veto that, instantly, Letitia," I asserted gravely. "Stop it at once, before--before she calls me Archie. She'll do it. I know she will." "You go," pleaded Letitia in fervent tones. "Do it for me, Archie. I've done so much."