"How is it," said the judge, "that no one has ever heard of his Bellevale career out in Hazelhurst, if he's so prominent? We read, out there, and once in a while one of us goes outside the corporation."
"His name," said Madame le Claire, "in Bellevale is not Florian Amidon."
"What is it?" cried Amidon. "Tell it to me!"
Madame le Claire restrained him with a calm glance.
"It is Eugene Brassfield," said she.
"It is your own dotes," cried the professor gleefully, "your own dicket, your own gorrespondence!"
Amidon was feeling in his breast-pocket for something. He withdrew his hand, holding in it a letter, and looked from it to Madame le Claire questioningly.
"Oh, yes!" said she, not quite in her usual manner, "it's yours. It's from Miss Elizabeth Waldron, of Bellevale, your affianced wife."
"Aha!" said the judge. "Now will you get mad when I speak of a double life? Engaged, hey?"
"I never saw the—the lady in my life," was the reply; "so how can I be—can I be—engaged to her?"