twins better
than that over here. But come now--hasn't it occurred to you you might
marry one of them, and so become quite naturally related to them both?"

Mr. Twist's spectacles seemed to grow gigantic.

"Marry one of them?" he repeated, his mouth helplessly opening.

"Yep," said the lawyer, giving him a lead in free-and-easiness.

"Look here," said Mr. Twist suddenly gathering his mouth together, "cut
that line of joke out. I'm here on serious business. I haven't come to
be facetious. Least of all about those children--"

"Quite so, quite so," interrupted the lawyer pleasantly. "Children, you
call them. How old are they? Seventeen? My wife was sixteen when we
married. Oh quite so, quite so. Certainly. By all means. Well then,
they're to be your wards. And you don't want it known how recently
they've become your wards--"

"I didn't say that," said Mr. Twist.

"Quite so, quite so. But it's your wish, isn't it. The relationship is
to look as grass-grown as possible. Well, I shall be dumb of course, but
most things get into the press here. Let me see--" He pulled a sheet
of paper towards him and took up his fountain pen. "Just oblige me with
particulars. Date of birth. Place of birth. Parentage--"

He looked up ready to write, waiting for the answers.

None came.

"I can't tell you off hand," said Mr. Twist presently, his forehead
puckered.

"Ah," said the lawyer, laying down his pen. "Quite so. Not known your
young friends long enough yet."

"I've known them quite long enough," said Mr. Twist stiffly, "but we
happen to have found more alive topics of conversation than dates and
parents."

"Ah. Parents not alive."

"Unfortunately they are not. If they were, these poor children wouldn't
be knocking about in a strange country."

"Where would they be?" asked the lawyer, balancing his pen across his
forefinger.

Mr. Twist looked at him very straight. Vividly he remembered his
mother's peculiar horror when he told her the girls he was throwing away
his home life for and breaking her heart over were Germans. It had acted
upon her like the last straw. And since then he had felt everywhere,
with every one he talked to, in every newspaper he read, the same strong
hostility to Germans, so much stronger than when he left America the
year before.

Mr. Twist began to perceive that he had been impetuous in this matter of
the guardianship. He hadn't considered it enough. He suddenly saw
innumerable difficulties f