s n't for a little 'extramural equity,' as one might call it, it
would go very hard with the widow and the orphan in this world; but we,
coarse-minded fellows, as I 've no doubt you 'd call us, we do kinder
things in our own way than commissioners under the act."

"Can you recover the money for them?" asked Augustus, earnestly. "Can
you do that?"

"Not legally--not a chance of it; but I think I 'll make a noble lord of
our acquaintance disgorge something handsome. I don't mean to press any
claim of my own. If he behaves politely, and asks me to dine, and treats
me like a gentleman, I 'll not be over hard with him. I like the--not
the conveniences--that's not the word, but the----"

"'Convenances,' perhaps," interposed Ellen.

"That's it--the convenances. I like the attentions that seem to say, 'T.
C. is n't to be kept in a tunnel or a cutting, but is good company at
table, with long-necked bottles beside him. T. C. can be talked to about
the world: about pale sherry, and pretty women, and the delights of
Homburg, and the odds on the Derby; he's as much at home at Belgravia as
on an embankment.'"

"I suspect there will be few to dispute that," said Augustus, solemnly.

"Not when they knows it, Bramleigh; 'not when they knows it,' as the
cabbies say. The thing is to make them know it, to make them feel it.
There 's a rough-and-ready way of putting all men like myself, who take
liberties with the letter H, down as snobs; but you see there 's snobs
and snobs. There 's snobs that are only snobs; there 's snobs that have
nothing distinctive about them but their snobbery, and there 's snobs so
well up in life, so shrewd, such downright keen men of the world, that
their snobbery is only an accident, like a splash from a passing 'bus;
and, in fact, their snobbery puts a sort of accent on their acute-ness,
just like a trade-mark, and tells you it was town-made--no bad thing,
Bramleigh, when that town calls itself London!"

If Augustus vouchsafed little approval of this speech, Ellen smiled an
apparent concurrence, while in reality it was the man's pretension and
assurance that amused her.

"You ain't as jolly as you used to be; how is that?" said Cutbill,
shaking Bramleigh jocosely by the arm. "I suspect you are disposed, like
Jeremiah, to a melancholy line of life?"

"I was not aware, sir, that my spirits could be matter of remark," said
Augustus, haughtily.

"And why not? You're no highness, royal or serene, that one