in France, had to be declared, and this question of nationality became of
great importance in after years--Madame said:

"Since we have adopted him, why not give him our name?"

But Ben, with the romanticism of Bohemia, replied:

"No. His name belongs to him. If he keeps it, he may be able to find out
something about his family. He might be the heir to great possessions.
One never knows. It's a clue anyway. Besides," he added, the sturdy North
countryman asserting itself, "I'm not giving my name to any man save
the son of my loins. It's a name where I come from that has never been
dishonoured for a couple of hundred years."

"But it is just as you like, _mon cheri_," said Madame, who was the
placidest thing in France.

* * * * *

For thirty years I had forgotten all this; but the "By Gum!" of Colonel
Lackaday wiped out the superscription over the palimpsest of memory and
revealed in startling clearness all these impressions of the past.

"Of course we're fond of the kid," said Ben Flint. "He's free from vice and
as clever as paint. He's a born acrobat. Might as well try to teach a duck
to swim. It comes natural. Heredity of course. There's nothing he won't be
able to do when I'm finished with him. Yet there are some things which lick
me altogether. He's an ugly son of a gun. His father and mother, by the
way, were a damn good-looking pair. But their hands were the thick spread
muscular hands of the acrobat. Where the deuce did he get his long, thin