We came to be discussing our looks this morning, because Pennybet, having discovered that among other accomplishments he was a fine ethnologist, was about to determine the race and tribe of each of us by an examination of our features and colouring.

“I’m a Norman,” he decided, and threw himself back on his chair, putting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, as though that were a comely Norman attitude, “a pure Norman, but I don’t know how my hair got so dark, and my eyes such a spiffing brown.”

“What am I?” I interrupted, as introducing a subject of more immediate interest.

“You, Ray?  Oh, you’re a Saxon.  Your name’s Rupert, you see, and you’ve blue eyes and a fair skin, and all that rot.”

I was quite satisfied with being a pure Saxon, and left Doe to his examination.

“What am I?” he eagerly asked, offering his oval face and parted lips for scrutiny.

“You?  Oh, Saxon, with a dash of Southern blood.  Brown eyes, you see, and that sloppy milk-and-coffee skin.  And there’s a dash of Viking in you—­that’s your fair hair.  Adulterated Saxon you are.”

At this Doe loudly protested that he was a pure Saxon, a perfect Cornish Saxon from the banks of the Fal.

Penny always discouraged precocious criticism, so he replied: 

“I’m not arguing with you, my child.”

“You? Who are you?”

Penny let his thumbs go further into his armholes, and assured us with majestic suavity: 

“I?  I’m Me.”

“No, you’re not,” snapped Doe.  “You’re not me.  I’m me.”

“Well, you’re neither of you me,” interrupted the third fool in the room.  “I’m me.  So sucks!”

“Now you two boys,” began our stately patron, “don’t you begin dictating to me.  Once and for all, Doe is Doe, Ray is Ray, and I’m Me.  Why, by Jove!  Doe-Ray-Me!  It’s a joke; and I’m a gifted person.”

This discovery of the adaptability of our names was so startling that I exclaimed: 

“Good Lord!  How mad!”

Penny only shrugged his shoulders, and generally plumed himself on his little success.  And Doe said: 

“Has that only just dawned on you?”

“Observe,” sneered Penny.  “The Gray Doe is jealous.  He would like the fame of having made this fine jest.  So he pretends he thought of it long ago.  He bags it.”

“Not worth bagging,” suggested Doe, who was pulling a lock of his pale hair over his forehead, and trying with elevated eye-brows to survey it critically.  His feet were resting on a seat in front of him, and his trousers were well pulled up, so as to show a certain tract of decent sock.  Penny scanned him as though his very appearance were nauseating.

“Well, why did you bag it?”

“I didn’t.”

“I say, you’re a bit of a liar, aren’t you?”

“Well, if I’m a bit of a liar, you’re a lot of one.”

“My dear little boy,” said Penny, with intent to hurt, “we all know the reputation for lying you had at your last school.”