y
demeanour, which had certainly gone up as he himself had come down; and
that is a reason why I don't as a rule like people who have come down in
the world--they are sure to be so stuck up. But I do like a person who
has come down in the world and doesn't at all mind it--much better than
any man who has got up in the world from the half-crown, and does mind it
upon all occasions.

Mrs. Prigg, apart from her high descent, was a very aristocratic person:
as the presence of the grand piano in the drawing-room would testify.
She could no more live without a grand piano than ordinary people could
exist without food: the grand piano, albeit a very dilapidated one, was a
necessity of her well-descended condition. It was no matter that it
displaced more useful furniture; in that it only imitated a good many
other persons, and it told you whenever you entered the room: "You see me
here in a comparatively small way, but understand, I have been in far
different circumstances: I have been courted by the great, and listened
to by the aristocracy of England. I follow Mrs. Prigg wherever she goes:
she is a lady; her connections are high, and she never yet associated
with any but the best families. You could not diminish from her very
high breeding: put her in the workhouse, and with me to accompany her, it
would be transformed into a palace."

Mr. Prigg was by no means a rich man as the world counts richness. No
one ever heard of his having a "_practice_," although it was believed he
did a great deal in the way of "lending his name" _and profession_ to
impecunious and uneducated men; who could turn many a six-and-eightpence
under its prestige. So great is the moral "power of attorney," as
contradistinguished from the legal "power of attorney."

But Prigg, as I have hinted, was not only respectable, he was _good_: he
was more than that even, he was _notoriously_ good: so much so, that he
was called, in contradistinction to all other lawyers, "_Honest Lawyer
Prigg_"; and he had further acquired, almost as a universal title, the
sobriquet of "Nice." Everybody said, "What a very nice man Mr. Prigg
is!" Then, in addition to all this, he was considered _clever_--why, I
do not know; but I have often observed that men can obtain the reputation
of being clever at very little cost, and without the least foundation.
The cheapest of all ways is to abuse men who really are clever, and if
your abuse be pungently and not too coarsely word