. Count Herbert
Bismarck was in attendance on his Imperial master, and when they
reached the door of the Pope's audience-chamber the Emperor passed in,
and the Count tried to follow. A gentleman of the Papal Court motioned
him to stand back, as there must be no third person at the interview
between the Pope and the Emperor. "I am Count Herbert Bismarck," shouted
the German, as he struggled to follow his master. "That," replied the
Roman, with calm dignity, "may account for, but it does not excuse, your
conduct."

But, after all these "fash'nable fax and polite annygoats," as Thackeray
would have called them, after all these engaging courtesies of kings and
prelates and great ladies, I think that the honours in the way of
repartee rest with the little Harrow boy who was shouting himself hoarse
in the jubilation of victory after an Eton and Harrow match at Lord's in
which Harrow had it hollow. To him an Eton boy, of corresponding years,
severely observed, "Well, you Harrow fellows needn't be so beastly
cocky. When you wanted a Head Master you had to come to Eton to get
one." The small Harrovian was dumfounded for a moment, and then, pulling
himself together for a final effort of deadly sarcasm, exclaimed, "Well,
at any rate, no one can say that we ever produced a Mr. Gladstone."

XX.

TITLES.

The List of Honours, usually published on Her Majesty's Birthday, is
this year[23] reserved till the Jubilee Day, and to sanguine aspirants I
would say, in Mrs. Gamp's immortal words, "Seek not to proticipate."
Such a list always contains food for the reflective mind, and some of
the thoughts which it suggests may even lie too deep for tears. Why is
my namesake picked out for knighthood, while I remain hidden in my
native obscurity? Why is my rival made a C.B., while I "go forth
Companionless" to meet the chances and the vexations of another year?
But there is balm in Gilead. If I have fared badly, my friends have done
little better. Like Mr. Squeers, when Bolder's father was two pound ten
short, they have had their disappointments to contend against. A., who
was so confident of a peerage, is fobbed off with a baronetcy; and B.,
whose labours for the Primrose League entitled him to expect the Bath,
finds himself grouped with the Queen's footmen in the Royal Victorian
Order. As, when Sir Robert Peel declined to form a Government in 1839,
"twenty gentlemen who had not been appointed Under Secretaries for State
moaned over t