are a long-lived family. She has often told me she
never knew a better, sincerer, nobler, or more sensible woman than
Barty's wife.

Besides which, as I have been told, the ancient Yorkshire house of
Rohan has always been singularly free from aristocratic hauteur;
perhaps their religion may have accounted for this, and also their
poverty.

This memorable visit, it must be remembered, happened nearly forty
years ago, when social demarcations in England were far more rigidly
defined than at present; then, the wife of a costermonger with a
donkey did not visit the wife of a costermonger who had to wheel his
barrow himself.

We are more sensible in these days, as all who like Mr. Chevalier's
admirable coster-songs are aware. Old Europe itself has become less
tolerant of distinctions of rank; even Austria is becoming so. It is
only in southeastern Bulgaria--and even of this I am not absolutely
sure--that the navvy who happens to be of noble birth refuses to
work in the same gang with the navvy who isn't; and that's what I
call real "esprit de corps," without which no aristocracy can ever
hope to hold its own in these degenerate days.

Noblesse oblige!

Why, I've got a Lord Arthur in my New York agency, and two Hon'bles
in Barge Yard, and another at Cape Town; and devilish good men of
business they are, besides being good fellows all round. They hope
to become partners some day; and, by Jove! they shall. Now I've said
it, I'll stick to it.

The fact is, I'm rather fond of noble lords: why shouldn't I be? I
might have been one myself any day these last ten years; I might
now, if I chose; but there! Charles Lamb knew a man who wanted to be
a tailor once, but hadn't got the spirit. I find I haven't got the
spirit to be a noble lord. Even Barty might have been a lord--he, a
mere man of letters!--but he refused every honor and distinction
that was ever offered to him, either here or abroad--even the
Prussian order of Merit!

Alfred Tennyson was a lord, so what is there to make such a fuss
about. Give me lords who can't help themselves, because they were
born so, and the stupider the better; and the older--for the older
they are the grander their manners and the manners of their
womankind.

Take, for instance, that splendid old dow, Penelope, Duchess of
Rumtifoozleland--I always give nicknames to my grand acquaintances;
not that she's particularly old herself, but she belongs to an
antiquated order of things that is p