by him to forget that, if he
could total fifteen years, we could only scrape together a bare
thirteen. We were mere children. Doe and I, being thirteen and an
exact number of days, were twins, or we would have been, had it not
been for the divergence of our parentage. We often expressed a wish
that this divergence were capable of remedy. It involved minor
differences. For instance, while Doe's eyes were brown, mine were
blue; and while Doe's hair was very fair, mine was a tedious drab
that had once been gold. Moreover, in place of my wide mouth, Doe
possessed lips that were always parted like those of a pretty girl.
Indeed, if Archie Pennybet was the handsomest of us three, it is
certain that Edgar Gray Doe was the prettiest.

We came to be discussing our looks this morning, because Pennybet,
having discovered that among other accomplishments he was a fine
ethnologist, was about to determine the race and tribe of each of us
by an examination of our features and colouring.

"I'm a Norman," he decided, and threw himself back on his chair,
putting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, as though
that were a comely Norman attitude, "a pure Norman, but I don't know
how my hair got so dark, and my eyes such a spiffing brown."

"What am I?" I interrupted, as introducing a subject of more
immediate interest.

"You, Ray? Oh, you're a Saxon. Your name's Rupert, you see, and
you've blue eyes and a fair skin, and all that rot."

I was quite satisfied with being a pure Saxon, and left Doe to his
examination.

"What am I?" he eagerly asked, offering his oval face and parted
lips for scrutiny.

"You? Oh, Saxon, with a dash of Southern blood. Brown eyes, you see,
and that sloppy milk-and-coffee skin. And there's a dash of Viking
in you--that's your fair hair. Adulterated Saxon you are."

At this Doe loudly protested that he was a pure Saxon, a perfect
Cornish Saxon from the banks of the Fal.

Penny always discouraged precocious criticism, so he replied:

"I'm not arguing with you, my child."

"_You?_ Who are you?"

Penny let his thumbs go further into his armholes, and assured us
with majestic suavity:

"I? I'm _Me_."

"No, you're not," snapped Doe. "You're not me. I'm me."

"Well, you're neither of you me," interrupted the third fool in the
room. "I'm me. So sucks!"

"Now you two boys," began our stately patron, "don't you begin
dictating to _me_. Once and for all, Doe is Doe, Ray is Ray, and I'm
Me. Why