in his eyes.

His manner towards his son grew colder and colder from that day forward;
and it was with bitterness of heart that he discerned the characteristic
features of the Petricks unfolding themselves by degrees. Instead of the
elegant knife-edged nose, so typical of the Dukes of Southwesterland,
there began to appear on his face the broad nostril and hollow bridge of
his grandfather Timothy. No illustrious line of politicians was promised
a continuator in that graying blue eye, for it was acquiring the
expression of the orb of a particularly objectionable cousin of his own;
and, instead of the mouth-curves which had thrilled Parliamentary
audiences in speeches now bound in calf in every well-ordered library,
there was the bull-lip of that very uncle of his who had had the
misfortune with the signature of a gentleman's will, and had been
transported for life in consequence.

To think how he himself, too, had sinned in this same matter of a will
for this mere fleshly reproduction of a wretched old uncle whose very
name he wished to forget! The boy's Christian name, even, was an
imposture and an irony, for it implied hereditary force and brilliancy to
which he plainly would never attain. The consolation of real sonship was
always left him certainly; but he could not help groaning to himself,
'Why cannot a son be one's own and somebody else's likewise!'

The Marquis was shortly afterwards in the neighbourhood of Stapleford,
and Timothy Petrick met him, and eyed his noble countenance admiringly.
The next day, when Petrick was in his study, somebody knocked at the
door.

'Who's there?'

'Rupert.'

'I'll Rupert thee, you young impostor! Say, only a poor commonplace
Petrick!' his father grunted. 'Why didn't you have a voice like the
Marquis's I saw yesterday?' he continued, as the lad came in. 'Why
haven't you his looks, and a way of commanding, as if you'd done it for
centuries--hey?'

'Why? How can you expect it, father, when I'm not related to him?'

'Ugh! Then you ought to be!' growled his father.

* * * * *

As the narrator paused, the surgeon, the Colonel, the historian, the
Spark, and others exclaimed that such subtle and instructive
psychological studies as this (now that psychology was so much in demand)
were precisely the tales they desired, as members of a scientific club,
and begged the master-maltster to tell another curious mental delusion.

The maltster shook his head, and feared he w