"No, look here, call him _Damocles_, and done with it. The Sword hangs
over him too, I suppose, and he'll die by it, as all his ancestors
have done. Yes--"

"It's not a nice name, Sir, to my thinking," interrupted the woman,
"not for an only name--and for an only child. Let it be a second or
third name, Sir, if you want to give him such an outlandish one."

She fingered her new black dress nervously with twitching hands and
the tight lips trembled.

"He's to be named Damocles and nothing else," replied the Master, and,
as she turned away with a look of positive hate, he added
sardonically:--

"And then you can call him 'Dam' for short, you know, Nurse."

Nurse Beaton bridled, clenched her hands, and stiffened visibly. Had
the man been her social equal or any other than her master, her
pent-up wrath and indignation would have broken forth in a torrent of
scathing abuse.

"Never would I call the poor motherless lamb _Dam_, Sir," she
answered with restraint.

"Then call him _Dummy!_ Good morning, Nurse," snapped the Colonel.

As she turned to go, with a bitter sigh, she asked in the hopeless
tone of one who knows the waste of words:--