oom of the Chambers, with carefully-trimmed whiskers, a
white tie, a silky voice, and the appearance of an arch-deacon. This
visit is recorded because it made a profound impression upon a plastic
mind. John had never sat in the seats of the mighty. Verney Boscobel
was a delightful old house, but it might have been put, stables and
all, into White Ladies, and never found again. Fluff showed John the
famous Reynolds and Gainsborough portraits, the Van Dycks and Lelys,
the Romneys and Richmonds. Fair women and brave men smiled or frowned
at our hero wherever he turned his wondering eyes. After the first
tour of the great galleries, he turned to his companion.

"I say," he whispered solemnly, "some of 'em look as if they didn't
like my calling you--Fluff."

"I wish you'd call me Esme."

"All right," said John, "I will; and--er--although you didn't get into
the Torpids, you can call me--John."

"Oh, John, thanks awfully."

Ponies were provided for the boys to ride, and they shot rabbits in the
Chase. Also, they appeared at dinner, a tremendous function, and were
encouraged by some of the younger guests to spar (verbally, of course)
with the duke's Etonian sons. Fluff looked so much stronger and
happier that his parents, delighted with their experiment, were
inclined to cry up the Hill, much to the exasperation of the dwellers
in the Plain.

When he left White Ladies John had learned one valuable lesson. His
sense of that hackneyed phrase, _noblesse oblige_, the sense which
remains nonsense with so many boys (old and young), had been quickened.
Little more than a child in many ways, he realized, as a man does, the
true significance of rank and wealth. The Duke of Trent had married a
pleasure-loving dame; White Ladies was essentially a pleasure-house, to
which came gladly enough the wit and beauty of the kingdom. And yet
the duke, not clever as compared to his guests, not even good-looking
as compared to the splendid gentlemen whom Van Dyck and Lely had
painted, _undistinguished_, in fine, in everything save rank and
wealth, worked, early and late, harder than any labourer upon his vast
domain. And when John said to Fluff, "I say, Esme, why does the duke
work so beastly hard?" Fluff replied with emphasis, "Why, because he
has to, you know. It's no joke to be born a duke, and I'm jolly glad
that I'm a younger son. Father says that he has no amusements, but
plenty of occupation. Mother says he's the unpaid