‘And poet—you forget that, sir—poet, sir,’ sharply retorted the colonel.
‘I can assure you, sir, we have men of good family playing very small parts to-night. Trip took honours at Oxford, and Backbite is a Cambridge man.’
‘Pray, sir,’ replied the colonel, ‘if that be the case, why do you all sail under false colours? Why resign the honoured name of Stanley for the Frenchified one of Montmorency?’
The young man bowed as he responded: ‘Out of deference to the shallow scruples of the narrow-minded portion of Society.’
‘Of which I constitute a member, eh?’
It was in a more conciliatory tone that his son took up the argument. ‘Pray, sir, let me ask you a question. Do poets and novelists never adopt a nom de plume? Did not Miss Evans style herself “George Eliot;” the late Governor-general of India, “Owen Meredith;” Mademoiselle de la Ramée, “Ouida;” Dickens, “Boz?”’
‘That’ll do,’ interrupted the colonel. ‘Then one fine day you will be falling in love, as you call it, with one of these artful and painted sirens, and I shall find myself grandfather to a clown or a pantaloon! For, of course, you will bring up your offspring to the profession, as you call it, as if there were no other profession in the world.’
His son and heir drew himself proudly up as he replied: ‘No, sir; I trust I shall never forget that I own the honoured name of Stanley.’
The colonel remained silent for several moments ere he observed: ‘I shall never understand why you declined even to see Miss Anstruther.’
‘Because the very fact that the lady was labelled my future wife,’ replied his son, ‘would have caused me to detest her at first sight.’