xchequer or a Cheap John;
I am not quite clear which as yet."

"Identically the same things!" cried Trevenna. "The only difference is
the scale they are on; one talks from the bench, and the other from the
benches; one cheapens tins, and the other cheapens taxes; one has a
salve for an incurable disease, and the other a salve for the national
debt; one rounds his periods to put off a watch that won't go, and the
other to cover a deficit that won't close; but they radically drive the
same trade, and both are successful if the spavined mare trots out
looking sound, and the people pay up. 'Look what I save you,' cry Cheap
John and Chancellor; and while they shout their economics, they pocket
their shillings. Ah, if I were sure I could bamboozle a village, I
should know I was qualified to make up a Budget."

* * *

"Most impudent of men! When will you learn the first lesson of society,
and decently and discreetly _apprendre a vous effacer_?"

"_A m'effacer_? The advice Lady Harriet Vandeleur gave Cecil. Very good
for mediocre people, I dare say; but it wouldn't suit _me_. There are
some people, you know, that won't iron down for the hardest rollers.
_M'effacer_? No! I'd rather any day be an ill-bred originality than a
well-bred nonentity."

"Then you succeed perfectly in being what you wish! Don't you know,
monsieur, that to set yourself against conventionalities is like talking
too loud?--an impertinence and an under-breeding that society resents by
exclusion."

"Yes, I know it. But a duke may bawl, and nobody shuts out _him_; a
prince might hop on one leg, and everybody would begin to hop too. Now,
what the ducal lungs and the princely legs might do with impunity, I
declare I've a right to do, if I like."

"_Becasse_! no one can declare his rights till he can do much more,
and--purchase them. Have a million, and we may perhaps give you a little
license to be unlike other persons: without the million it is an
ill-bred _gaucherie_."

"Ah, I know! Only a nobleman may be original; a poor penniless wretch
upon town must be humbly and insignificantly commonplace. What a pity
for the success of the aristocratic monopolists that nature puts clever
fellows and fools just in the reverse order! But then nature's a
shocking socialist."

"And so are you."

Trevenna laughed.

"Hush, madame. Pray don't destroy me with such a whisper."

* * *

Talent wears well; genius wears itself