d receive Brummagem to show it how to dress; we might even succeed in
making the feminine British Public drape itself properly, and the B. P.
masculine wear boots that won't creak, and coats that don't wrinkle, and
take off its hat without a jerk, as though it were a wooden puppet hung
on very stiff strings. Or one might--"

"Talk the greatest nonsense under the sun!" laughed the Seraph. "For
mercy's sake, are you mad, Bertie?"

"Inevitable question addressed to Genius!" yawned Cecil. "I'm showing
you plans that might teach a whole nation good style if we just threw
ourselves into it a little. I don't mean you, because you'll never
smash, and one don't turn bear-leader, even to the B. P., without the
primary impulse of being hard-up. And I don't talk for myself, because,
when I go to the dogs I have my own project."

"And what's that?"

"To be groom of the chambers at Meurice's or Claridge's," responded
Bertie solemnly. "Those sublime creatures with their silver chains round
their necks and their ineffable supremacy over every other mortal!--one
would feel in a superior region still. And when a snob came to poison
the air, how exquisitely one could annihilate him with showing him his
ignorance of claret; and when an epicure dined, how delightfully, as one
carried in a turbot, one could test him with the eprouvette positive,
or crush him by the eprouvette negative. We have been Equerries at the
Palace, both of us, but I don't think we know what true dignity is till
we shall have risen to headwaiters at a Grand Hotel."

With which Bertie let his charger pace onward, while he reflected
thoughtfully on his future state. The Seraph laughed till he almost
swayed out of saddle, but he shook himself into his balance again with
another clash of his brilliant harness, while his eyes lightened and
glanced with a fiery gleam down the line of the Household Cavalry.

"Well, if I went to the dogs I wouldn't go to Grand Hotels; but I'll
tell you where I would go, Beauty."

"Where's that?"

"Into hot service, somewhere. By Jove, I'd see some good fighting
under another flag--out in Algeria, there, or with the Poles, or after
Garibaldi. I would, in a day--I'm not sure I won't now, and I bet you
ten to one the life would be better than this."

Which was ungrateful in the Seraph, for his happy temper made him the
sunniest and most contented of men, with no cross in his life save the
dread that somebody would manage to marry him s