their kind
permission."

"There is something very odd about this, Claudius. Have you got such a
thing as a birth certificate to show?"

"Yes," answered Claudius, after a pause. "I have everything in perfect
order, my mother's marriage and all."

"Then why, in Heaven's name, can you not show it, and put all these
rascally lawyers to flight?"

"Because--" Claudius began, but he hesitated and stopped. "It is a
curious story," he said, "and it is precisely what I want to talk to you
about."

"Is it very long?" asked the Duke; "I have not dined yet."

"No, it will not take long, and if you have nothing better to do we will
dine together afterwards. But first there are two things I want to say.
If I prove to you that I am the son of my uncle's sister, will you tell
Mr. Screw that you know it for a fact, that is, that if it had to be
sworn to, you would be willing to swear to it?"

"If you prove it to me so that I am legally sure of it, of course I
will."

"The other thing I will ask you is, not to divulge what I shall tell
you, or show you. You may imagine from my being unwilling to show these
papers, even to a lawyer, when my own fortune is concerned, that I
attach some importance to secrecy."

"You may trust me," said the Duke; "you have my word," he added, as if
reluctantly. People whose word is to be trusted are generally slow to
give it. Claudius bowed his head courteously, in acknowledgment of the
plighted promise. Then he opened a trunk that stood in a corner of the
room, and took from it the iron box in which he had deposited the
lawyer's letter on that evening three months before, when his destiny
had roused itself from its thirty years' slumber. He set the box on the
table, and having locked the door of the room sat down opposite his
guest. He took a key from his pocket.

"You will think it strange," he said with a smile, "that I should have
taken the liberty of confiding to you my secret. But when you have seen
what is there, you will perceive that you are the most fitting confidant
in this country--for general reasons, of course; for I need not say
there is nothing in those papers which concerns you personally."
Claudius unlocked the box and took out a few letters that were lying on
the top, then he pushed the casket across the table to the Duke.

"Will you please examine the contents for yourself?" he said. "There are
only three or four papers to read--the rest are letters from my father
to my moth