The visitor, clearly anything but reliant on this assurance, doggedly muttered “Alfred David.”

“Is that your name?” asked Lightwood.

“My name?” returned the man. “No; I want to take a Alfred David.”

(Which Eugene, smoking and contemplating him, interpreted as meaning Affidavit.)

“I tell you, my good fellow,” said Lightwood, with his indolent laugh, “that I have nothing to do with swearing.”

“He can swear at you,” Eugene explained; “and so can I. But we can’t do more for you.”