he reach of that surprising arrogance
and that astounding meanness to which this wretched old victim is
obliged to mount and descend.

CHAPTER XXIX--A VISIT TO SOME COUNTRY SNOBS

Notable as my reception had been (under that unfortunate mistake of Mrs.
Ponto that I was related to Lord Snobbington, which I was not permitted
to correct), it was nothing compared to the bowing and kotooing, the
raptures and flurry which preceded and welcomed the visit of a real live
lord and lord's son, a brother officer of Cornet Wellesley Ponto, in
the 120th Hussars, who came over with the young Cornet from Guttlebury,
where their distinguished regiment was quartered. This was my
Lord Gules, Lord Saltire's grandson and heir: a very young, short,
sandy-haired and tobacco-smoking nobleman, who cannot have left the
nursery very long, and who, though he accepted the honest Major's
invitation to the Evergreens in a letter written in a school-boy
handwriting, with a number of faults of spelling, may yet be a very fine
classical scholar for what I know: having had his education at Eton,
where he and young Ponto were inseparable.

At any rate, if he can't write, he has mastered a number of other
accomplishments wonderful for one of his age and size. He is one of the
best shots and riders in England. He rode his horse Abracadabra, and won
the famous Guttlebury steeple-chase. He has horses entered at half the
races in the country (under other people's names; for the old lord is a
strict hand, and will not hear of betting or gambling). He has lost and
won such sums of money as my Lord George himself might be proud of.
He knows all the stables, and all the jockeys, and has all the
'information,' and is a match for the best Leg at Newmarket. Nobody was
ever known to be 'too much' for him at play or in the stable.

Although his grandfather makes him a moderate allowance, by the aid of
POST-OBITS and convenient friends he can live in a splendour becoming
his rank. He has not distinguished himself in the knocking down of
policemen much; he is not big enough for that. But, as a light-weight,
his skill is of the very highest order. At billiards he is said to
be first-rate. He drinks and smokes as much as any two of the biggest
officers in his regiment. With such high talents, who can say how far
he may not go? He may take to politics as a DELASSEMENT, and be Prime
Minister after Lord George Bentinck.

My young friend Wellesley Ponto is a gaunt and