Titus looked up quickly, and the Judge opened one of his table drawers. “When I was in England last I went to a heraldic office. I knew that Sancroft was an old English name, and I wished authentic information respecting our descent. There I saw our armorial bearings and got the pedigree. Here it is.”
The boy eagerly took the long slip of paper.
“Do you see,” said the Judge, “you can trace your ancestry back to a viking of Norway.”
“Hooray!” said Titus, suddenly brandishing the paper as if it were a weapon, “farther back than his. May I show this to Dallas?”
“Certainly.”
The boy stopped on his way out of the room and said in an injured voice, “Why didn’t you show me this before, sir?”
“I didn’t know that you would be interested,” said the Judge, in much amusement. “We pay, or have paid, so little attention to such matters in America. However, you are typical. The younger generation is thinking more about ancestral descent than ever the older ones have thought.”
Titus ran away, and the Judge gazed thoughtfully out of the window. Sukey was on the balcony nodding and bowing very energetically at a number of common street pigeons who were very anxious to perch beside her.
Higby had put her bath out in the sun, and it looked very attractive to them, but she was determined that they should not bathe in her china bowl.
One male pigeon lighted on the railing, and, strutting and talking to the princess, at last persuaded himself that she was favorably inclined toward him. He flew boldly on the edge of the dish. Whereupon Sukey ran forward, seized him by the short, soft feathers of the neck, and in a most unprincesslike rage shook him and dragged him about, until at last he was glad to get away from her.