r; and so when you have
clothed him in the formidable components of his name, you somehow seem
to be contemplating a lamb in armor: his name and style being the
Honourable Kirkcudbright Llanover Marjorihanks Sellers Viscount-Berkeley,
of Cholmondeley Castle, Warwickshire. (Pronounced K'koobry Thlanover
Marshbanks Sellers Vycount Barkly, of Chumly Castle, Warrikshr.) He is
standing by a great window, in an attitude suggestive of respectful
attention to what his father is saying and equally respectful dissent
from the positions and arguments offered. The father walks the floor as
he talks, and his talk shows that his temper is away up toward summer
heat.

"Soft-spirited as you are, Berkeley, I am quite aware that when you have
once made up your mind to do a thing which your ideas of honor and
justice require you to do, argument and reason are (for the time being,)
wasted upon you--yes, and ridicule; persuasion, supplication, and command
as well. To my mind--"

"Father, if you will look at it without prejudice, without passion, you
must concede that I am not doing a rash thing, a thoughtless, wilful
thing, with nothing substantial behind it to justify it. I did not
create the American claimant to the earldom of Rossmore; I did not hunt
for him, did not find him, did not obtrude him upon your notice.
He found himself, he injected himself into our lives--"

"And has made mine a purgatory for ten years with his tiresome letters,
his wordy reasonings, his acres of tedious evidence,--"

"Which you would never read, would never consent to read. Yet in common
fairness he was entitled to a hearing. That hearing would either prove
he was the rightful earl--in which case our course would be plain--or it
would prove that he wasn't--in which case our course would be equally
plain. I have read his evidences, my lord. I have conned them well,
studied them patiently and thoroughly. The chain seems to be complete,
no important link wanting. I believe he is the rightful earl."

"And I a usurper--a--nameless pauper, a tramp! Consider what you are
saying, sir."

"Father, if he is the rightful earl, would you, could you--that fact
being established--consent to keep his titles and his properties from him
a day, an hour, a minute?"

"You are talking nonsense--nonsense--lurid idiotcy! Now, listen to me.
I will make a confession--if you wish to call it by that name. I did not
read those evidences because I had no occasion to-