e), one could display
both--the spat itself, _and_, above it, the sock. Of course! To the
passer-by, awe-inspired, admiring, stimulated, would then have been
administered the double shock and edification. While gratefully
observing the so-harmonizing grey spat and grey shoe he would have
noted the Ossa of grey silk sock piled upon that Pelion of
ultra-fashionable foot-joy! Yes. He had acted hastily and had erred
and strayed from the Perfect Way--and a cloud, at first no bigger than
a continent or two, arose and darkened his mental sky.

But what of the cloud that settled upon him, black as that of the
night's Plutonian shore, a cloud much bigger than the Universe, when
a beastly, awful, ghastly, common private soldier arose from a seat--a
common seat for which you do not pay a penny and show your
selectitude--arose, I say, from a beastly common seat and SEIZED HIM
BY THE ARM and remarked in horrible, affected, mocking tones:--

"And how's the charming little Haddock, the fourpenny, common
breakfast Haddock?"

Yes, in full sight of the Leas of Folkestone, and the nobility,
gentry, shopmen, nurse-girls, suburban yachtsmen, nuts, noisettes,
bath-chairmen and all the world of rank and fashion, a common soldier
took the pearly-grey arm of _the_ Haddon Berners as he took the air
and walked abroad to give the public a treat. And proved to be his
shameful, shameless, disgraced, disgraceful, cowardly relative,
Damocles de Warrenne!

The Haddock reeled, but did not fall.

On catching sight of the beautiful young man, Dam's first impulse was
to spring up and flee, his second to complete the work of Mr. Levi
Solomonson of the pier concert and see for himself, once again, how he
was regarded by the eyes of all right-minded and respectable members
of society, including those of a kinsman with whom he had grown up.

Yes, in his bitterness of soul, and foolish youthful revolt against
Fate, he was attracted by the idea of claiming acquaintance with the
superb Haddock in his triumphant progress, take him by the arm, and
solemnly march him the whole length of the Leas! He would, by Jove!
_He did_.

Confronting the resplendent languid loafer, he silkily observed, as he
placed his cutting-whip beneath his left arm and extended his white
cotton-gloved right hand:--

"And how's the charming little Haddock, the fourpenny, common
breakfast Haddock?"

Had it been Ormonde Delorme, any friend of Monksmead days, any school
or Sandhurst