“Don’t like to see it show too young,” submitted Sharon.

“Can’t show too young,” declared Harvey D.

“Can’t it?” asked Sharon, mildly.

“Bright little chap—­no denying that,” said Gideon.  “Bright as a new penny, smart as a whip.  Talks right.  Other chap mumbles.”

“Got the gumption, though.”  Thus Sharon once more.

Long silences intervened after each speech in this dialogue.

“Head’s good,” said Harvey D.  “One of those long heads like father’s.  Other one’s head is round.”

“My own head is round.”  This was Sharon.  His tone was plaintive.

“Of course neither of them has a nose,” said Gideon.

He meant that neither of the twins had a nose in the Whipple sense, but no comment on this lack seemed to be required.  It would be unfair to expect a true nose in any but born Whipples.

Gideon Whipple from before the fireplace swayed forward on his toes and waved his half-smoked cigar.

“The long and short of it is—­the Whipple stock has run low.  We’re dying out.”

“Got to have new blood, that’s sure,” said Sharon.  “Build it up again.”

“I’d often thought of adopting,” said Harvey D., “in the last two years,” he carefully added.

“This youngster,” said Gideon; “of course we should never have heard of him but for Pat’s mad adventure, starting off with God only knows what visions in her little head.”

“She’d have gone, too,” said Sharon, dusting ashes from his waistcoat to the rug.  “Self-headed!”

“She demands a brother,” resumed Gideon, “and the family sorely needs she should have one, and this youngster seems eligible, and so—­” He waved his cigar.

“There really doesn’t seem any other way,” said Harvey D. at the table, putting a disordered pile of magazines into neat alignment.

“What about pedigree?” demanded Sharon.  “Any one traced him back?”

“I believe his father is here,” said Harvey D.

“I know him,” said Sharon.  “A mad, swearing, confident fellow, reckless, vagrant-like.  A printer by trade.  Looks healthy enough.  Don’t seem blemished.  But what about his father?”

“Is the boy’s mother known?” asked Harvey D.

“Easy to find out,” said Gideon.  “Ask Sarah Marwick,” and he went to the wall and pushed a button.  “Sarah knows the history of every one, scandalous and otherwise.”

Sarah Marwick came presently to the door, an austere spinster in black gown and white apron.  Her nose, though not Whipple in any degree, was still eminent in a way of its own, and her lips shut beneath it in a straight line.  She waited.

“Sarah,” said Gideon, “do you know a person named Cowan?  David Cowan, I believe it is.”

Sarah’s mien of professional reserve melted.

“Do I know Dave Cowan?” she challenged.  “Do I know him?  I’d know his hide in a tanyard.”

“That would seem sufficient,” remarked Gideon.