what he wants you to do?"

"Naturally, Peter. Why not? You cling to the theory that such heroic
measures are entirely unnecessary? So did I till I had threshed the
whole thing up and down with Uncle Elbert for an hour and a half, trying
to suggest some alternative that didn't look so silly. Kindly get the
facts well into your head, will you? The man must pursue Mary's
affection either there or here, mustn't he? He can't do it there because
his wife won't let him. In order to do it here, one would say offhand
that Mary would have to be here, and since her mother declines to bring
her, it does look to me as if the job would have to be done by somebody
else. However, if my logic is wrong, kindly let your powerful--"

"I don't say it's wrong. I merely say that it sounds like a cross
between a modern pork-king's divorce suit and a seventeenth century
peccadillo."

"And I reply that I don't care a hoot how it sounds. The only question
of any interest to me, Peter, is whether or not Uncle Elbert has a moral
right to a share in his own child. I say that he has such a right, and I
say further that this is the only way in the world that he can assert
his right. Oh, hang how it sounds! I'm the nearest thing to a son that
he has in this world, and I mean for him to have his rights. So--"

"Very fine," said Peter dryly. "But what's the matter with Carstairs
getting his rights for himself? Why doesn't he sneak up there and pull
the thing off on his own?"

Varney laughed. "Evidently you don't know Uncle Elbert, after all. He's
as temperamentally unfit to carry through a job of this sort as a