Hank, occupying the garden step ladder in the unavoidable absence of the Duke, found a sympathetic audience in the girl next door.
"I think uncle has behaved disgracefully!" she said shortly, "I have never heard of anything so paltry, so intensely and disagreeably mean, it is petty——"
Hank was very solemn and very cautious.
"It's a mighty serious business ejecting a duke," he said. "I sent Cole down to the free library to get a book on the feudal customs, and I've just read that old book from startin' gate to judges' wire, and there's nothin' doin' about firin' dukes—or duchesses," he added.
Alicia changed the subject with incoherent rapidity.
"What will you do?" she asked hastily.
"Do?" Hank's eyebrows rose at the preposterous question. "Do? Why I guess we'll just stay on."
"But my uncle will serve you with a writ of ejectment," she persisted.
Hank shook his head.
"I don't know her," he confessed, "but she must be geared up to shift the Duke. She must be well oiled an' run on ball bearin's, an' be triple expansion 'fore an' aft to make him budge. And if she misses fire once, it's down and out for hers. I don't know any writ of ejectment that was ever cast, that could lift the Duke when he was once planted."