life of English boys at school and about English manners
and customs, and Harry soon found himself chatting at his ease.

"The distinction of classes is clearly very much less with you in
England than it is here," the marquis said one day when Harry had
been describing a great fight which had taken place between a party
of Westminster boys and those of the neighbourhood. "It seems
extraordinary to me that sons of gentlemen should engage in a
personal fight with boys of the lowest class. Such a thing could
not happen here. If you were insulted by such a boy, what would
you do, Ernest?"

"I should run him through the body," Ernest said quietly.

"Just so," his father replied, "and I don't say you would be wrong
according to our notions; but I do not say that the English plan is
not the best. The English gentleman--for Monsieur Sandwith says
that even among grown-up people the same habits prevail--does not
disdain to show the canaille that even with their own rough weapons
he is their superior, and he thus holds their respect. It is a
coarse way and altogether at variance with our notions, but there
is much to be said for it."

"But it altogether does away with the reverence that the lower
class should feel for the upper," Ernest objected.

"That is true, Ernest. So long as that feeling generally exists, so
long as there is, as it were, a wide chasm between the two classes,
as there has always existed in France, it would be unwise perhaps
for one of the upper to admit that in any respect there could be
any equality between them; but this is not so in England, where a
certain equality has always been allowed to exist. The Englishman
of all ranks has a certain feeling of self-respect and independence,
and the result is shown in the history of the wars which have been
fought between the two nations.

"France in early days always relied upon her chivalry. The horde of
footmen she placed in the field counted for little. England, upon
the other hand, relied principally upon her archers and her pikemen,
and it must be admitted that they beat us handsomely. Then again in
the wars in Flanders, under the English general Marlborough their
infantry always proved themselves superior to ours. It is galling
to admit it, but there is no blinking the facts of history. It seems
to me that the feeling of independence and self-respect which this
English system gives rise to, even among the lowest class, must
render them man for man