n, he had smiled for the most part, and
had said but little, but had been very confident in himself. To none
of the arguments used against him would he yield in the least. As
to his mother's name, he said, no one had doubted, and no one would
doubt it for a moment. His mother's name had been settled by herself,
and she had borne it for a quarter of a century. She had not herself
thought of changing it. For her to blaze out into the world as a
Duchess,--it would be contrary to her feelings, to her taste, and to
her comfort! She would have no means of maintaining the title,--and
would be reduced to the necessity of still living in Paradise Row,
with the simple addition of an absurd nickname. As to that, no
question had been raised. It was only for him that she required the
new appellation.

As for herself, the whole thing had been settled at once by her own
good judgment.

As for himself, he said, the arguments were still stronger against
the absurd use of the grand title. It was imperative on him to earn
his bread, and his only means of doing so was by doing his work as a
clerk in the Post Office. Everybody admitted that it would not be
becoming that a Duke should be a clerk in the Post Office. It would
be so unbecoming, he declared, that he doubted whether any man could
be found brave enough to go through the world with such a fool's
cap on his head. At any rate he had no such courage. Moreover, no
Englishman, as he had been told, could at his own will and pleasure
call himself by a foreign title. It was his pleasure to be an
Englishman. He had always been an Englishman. As an inhabitant of
Holloway he had voted for two Radical members for the Borough of
Islington. He would not stultify his own proceedings, and declare
that everything which he had done was wrong. It was thus that he
argued the matter; and, as it seemed, no one could take upon himself
to prove that he was an Italian, or to prove that he was a Duke.

But, though he seemed to be, if not logical, at any rate rational,
the world generally did not agree with him. Wherever he was
encountered there seemed to be an opinion that he ought to assume
whatever name and whatever rights belonged to his father. Even at the
Post Office the world was against him.

"I don't quite know why you couldn't do it," said Sir Boreas, when
Roden put it to him whether it would be practicable that a young man
calling himself Duca di Crinola should take his place as a clerk
in M