ighted, by way of reward for his enormous benefactions to the
community. In the _role_ of philanthropist he was really much more
effective than the Countess. But he was not young, he was not pretty, he
was not a woman, and his family had not helped to rule England for
generations--at any rate, so far as anybody knew. He had made more money
than had ever before been made by a single brain in the manufacture of
earthenware, and he had given more money to public causes than a single
pocket had ever before given in the Five Towns. He had never sought
municipal honours, considering himself to be somewhat above such
trifles. He was the first purely local man to be knighted in the Five
Towns. Even before the bestowal of the knighthood his sense of humour
had been deficient, and immediately afterwards it had vanished entirely.
Indeed, he did not miss it. He divided the population of the kingdom
into two classes--the titled and the untitled. With Sir Jee, either you
were titled, or you weren't. He lumped all the untitled together; and to
be just to his logical faculty, he lumped all the titled together. There
were various titles--Sir Jee admitted that--but a title was a title, and
therefore all titles were practically equal. The Duke of Norfolk was one
titled individual, and Sir Jee was another. The fine difference between
them might be perceptible to the titled, and might properly be
recognised by the titled when the titled were among themselves, but for
the untitled such a difference ought not to exist and could not exist.

Thus for Sir Jee there were two titled beings in the group--the Countess
and himself. The Countess and himself formed one caste in the group, and
the rest another caste. And although the Countess, in her punctilious
demeanour towards him, gave due emphasis to his title (he returning more
than due emphasis to hers), he was not precisely pleased by the
undertones of suave condescension that characterised her greeting of him
as well as her greeting of the others. Moreover, he had known Denry as a
clerk of Mr Duncalf's, for Mr Duncalf had done a lot of legal work
for him in the past. He looked upon Denry as an upstart, a capering
mountebank, and he strongly resented Denry's familiarity with the
Countess. He further resented Denry's sling, which gave to Denry an
interesting romantic aspect (despite his beard), and he more than all
resented that Denry should have rescued the Countess from a carriage
accident by me