“Yes, he’s on the stage,” said Mr. Superbus with great satisfaction, “and doing very well. They say he’s the best carpenter they’ve ever had at the Gaiety. Yes, we’re an ancient family. I’ve never got the rights of it, but an old gentleman who lives at Cambridge told me that, if everybody had his due, I ought to be a member of the Roman Royal Family, being the eldest.”
Near Cæsar Magnus is the University of Cambridge, and there have been soured antiquarians who have suggested that the illustrious family of Superbus owed its origin to the freakish whim of certain freshmen whose gowns rustled in Petty Cury a hundred years ago. That these same students, in their humour, had adopted the family of an indigent carter, one Sooper, and had christened the family afresh. Mr. Superbus had heard these rumours and had treated them with contempt.
“How we came to start I don’t know,” he said, on his favourite topic; “but you know what women are when Romans are about!”
Gordon did not even trouble to guess.
“Now, Mr. Superbus, you have—er—a very important position. You’re a detective, I understand?”
Mr. Superbus nodded soberly.
“It must be an interesting life, watching people,” he suggested, “going into court and li—testifying to their various misdoings?”
“I never go into court,” said Mr. Superbus. And here, apparently, he had a grievance. “My work, so to speak, is commercial. Not that I shan’t go into court if a certain coop comes off.”
“Coop?” Gordon was puzzled.
“Coop,” repeated Mr. Superbus emphatically.