ation was denied
yesterday by Justice McAlpin."

"No, I didn't know it," returned Mr. Tutt. "Why?"

"Here's his memorandum in the Law Journal," answered his partner. "Read
it for yourself":

Matter of Fat and Skinny Club, Inc. This is an
application for approval of a certificate of incorporation
as a membership corporation. The stated purposes are
to promote and encourage social intercourse and good
fellowship and to advance the interests of the community.
The name selected is the Fat and Skinny Club. If this
be the most appropriate name descriptive of its membership
it is better that it remain unincorporated. Application
denied.

"Now who says the law isn't the perfection of common sense?" ruminated
Mr. Tutt. "Its general principles are magnificent."

"And yet," mused Tutt, "only last week Judge McAlpin granted the
petition of one Solomon Swackhamer to change his name to Phillips Brooks
Vanderbilt. Is that right? Is that justice? Is it equity? I ask
you!--when he turns down the Fat and Skinnies?"

"Oh, yes it is," retorted Mr. Tutt. "When you consider that Mr.
Swackhamer could have assumed the appellation of P.B. Vanderbilt or any
other name he chose without asking the court's permission at all."

"What!" protested Tutt incredulously.

"That's the law," returned the senior partner. "A man can call himself
what he chooses and change his name as often as he likes--so long, of
course, as he doesn't do it to defraud. The mere fact that a statute
likewise gives him the right to apply to the courts to accomplish the
same result makes no difference."

"Of course it might make him feel a little more comfortable about it to
do it that way," suggested Tutt. "Do you know, as long as I've practised
law in this town I've always assumed that one had to get permission to
change one's name."

"You've learned something," said Mr. Tutt suavely. "I hope you will put
it to good account. Here's '76 Fed.' Take it out and console the Fat and
Skinny Club with it if you can."

Mr. Tutt surrendered the volume without apparent regret and Tutt retired
to his own office and to the task of soothing the injured feelings of
Mr. Sorg.

A simple-minded little man was Tutt, for all his professional shrewdness
and ingenuity. Like many a hero of the battlefield and of the bar, once
inside the palings of his own fence he became modest, gentle, even
timorous. For Abigail, his wife, had no illusions about him and did not