"Because you will expect me to give you my name. I can't do it. I have
ceased to bear my family name; and, being out of society, what need have
I for an assumed name? As for my Christian name, it's so detestably ugly
that I hate the sight and sound of it. Here, they know me as The Lodger.
Will you have that? or will you have an appropriate nick-name? I come of
a mixed breed; and I'm likely, after what has happened to me, to turn out
a worthless fellow. Call me The Cur. Oh, you needn't start! that's as
accurate a description of me as any other. What's _your_ name?"

I wrote it for him. His face darkened when he found out who I was.

"Young, personally attractive, and a great landowner," he said. I saw you
just now talking familiarly with Cristel Toller. I didn't like that at
the time; I like it less than ever now."

My pencil asked him, without ceremony, what he meant.

He was ready with his reply. "I mean this: you owe something to the good
luck which has placed you where you are. Keep your familiarity for ladies
in your own rank of life."

This (to a young man like me) was unendurable insolence. I had hitherto
refrained from taking him at his own bitter word in the matter of
nick-name. In the irritation of the moment, I now first resolved to adopt
his suggestion seriously. The next slip of paper that I handed to him
administered the smartest rebuff that my dull brains could discover on
the spur of the moment: "The Cur is requested to keep his advice till he
is asked for it."