onths each, turn and turn about."

"But if--as would undoubtedly happen--each adoptive parent spent his
six months in undoing the other's work, it must follow that, at the
end of any given period, the child's mind would be a mere _tabula
rasa_. Suppose, on the other hand, we failed to wipe out each
other's teaching, the unfortunate youth would be launched upon life
with half his guns pointed inboard and his needle jerking from one
pole to the other. Consider the name, Jeremiah Tristram!"

"It is heterogeneous," admitted the Doctor.

"He would be called Tristram Jeremiah," Captain Barker put in.

"Well, but that is not less heterogeneous. O wise Solomon!" cried
the Doctor, with his mouth full of kidney-pie; "had I but the
authority you enjoyed in a like dispute, I would resign to you all
the credit of originality!"

"As it is, however, you are wasting our time, and it becomes clear
that we must fight, after all."

"By no means; for I have this moment received an inspiration.
Drawer!"

The drawer answered this summons almost before it was uttered, by
appearing in the doorway with a dish of eggs and a fresh tankard.

"Set the dish down and attend," commanded Dr. Beckerleg. "You have a
dice-box and dice in the house?"

"No, sir. His worship the Mayor--"

"My good fellow, the regulations against play in this town are well
known to me; also that the Crowns is an orderly house. Let me
suggest, then, that you have several gentlemen of the army lodging
under this roof; that one of these, if politely asked, might own that
he had come across such a thing as a dice-box during his sojourn in
the Low Countries. It may even be that in the sack of some
unpronounceable town or other he has acquired a specimen, and is
bringing it home in his valise to exhibit it to his family. Be so
good as to inform him that three gentlemen, in Room No. 6, who are
about to write a tractate on the amusements of the Dutch--"

"By your leave, sir, I don't know how it may be on campaign; but in
this house we never awaken a soldier for any reason which he cannot
grasp at once."

"In that case let him have his sleep out before you vex him with our
apologies. But meanwhile bring the dice."

The fellow went out, whispered to the chamber-maid, and returned in
less than five minutes with a pair of dice and a leathern box much
worn with use.

"They belong," he whispered, "to a young gentleman of the Admiral's
regiment, who was losing he