picture of amiability, was quite
imperturbed. Simon broke into a laugh:

"I quite grasp the situation; and I would much rather give you a more
elaborate pedigree, with a coat-of-arms, motto and title-deeds
complete. Unfortunately, that's impossible. However, if it comes to
that, we can trace back our ancestry to the fourteenth century. Yes,
Lord Bakefield, in 1392, Mathieu Dubosc, a yeoman in the manor of
Blancmesnil, near Dieppe, was sentenced to fifty strokes of the rod
for theft. And the Duboscs went on valiantly tilling the soil, from
father to son. The farm still exists, the farm _du Bosc_, that is _du
Bosquet_, of the clump of trees. . . ."

"Yes, yes, I know," interrupted Lord Bakefield.

"Oh, you know," repeated the younger man, somewhat taken back.

He intuitively felt, by the old nobleman's attitude and the very tone
of the interruption, the full importance of the words which he was
about to hear.

And Lord Bakefield continued:

"Yes, I happen to know. . . . When I was at Dieppe last month, I made
a few inquiries about my family, which sprang from Normandy. Bakefield
as you may perhaps not be aware, is the English corruption of
Bacqueville. There was a Bacqueville among the companions of William
the Conqueror. You know the picturesque little market-town of that
name in the middle of the Pays de Caux? Well, there is a
fourteenth-century deed in the records at Bacqueville, a deed signed
in London, by which the Count of Bacqueville, Baron of Auppegard and
Gourel, grants to his vassal, the Lord of Blancmesnil, the right of
administering justice on the farm du Bosc . . . the same farm du Bosc
on which poor Mathieu received his thrashing. An amusing coincidence,
very amusing indeed: what do you think, young man?"

This time, Simon was pierced to the quick. It was impossible to
imagine a more impertinent answer couched in more frank and courteous
terms. Quite baldly, under the pretence of telling a genealogical
anecdote, Lord Bakefield made it clear that in his eyes young Dubosc
was of scarcely greater importance than was the fourteenth-century
yeoman in the eyes of the mighty English Baron Bakefield and feudal
lord of Blancmesnil. The titles and exploits of Simon Dubosc, world's
champion, victor in the Olympic Games, laureate of the French Academy
and all-round athlete, did not weigh an ounce in the scale by which a
British peer, conscious of his superiority, judges the merits of those
who aspire to his da