he army are their
property and would be so without this or any rule. The rule is
but to mark a limit. Its purpose is to keep out too recent blood,
which would bring into contempt these offices, and men of lofty
lineage would turn their backs and scorn to take them. I were
to blame an I permitted this calamity. _You_ can permit it an you
are minded so to do, for you have the delegated authority, but
that the king should do it were a most strange madness and not
comprehensible to any."

"I yield. Proceed, sir Chief of the Herald's College."

The chairman resumed as follows:

"By what illustrious achievement for the honor of the Throne and
State did the founder of your great line lift himself to the
sacred dignity of the British nobility?"

"He built a brewery."

"Sire, the Board finds this candidate perfect in all the requirements
and qualifications for military command, and doth hold his case
open for decision after due examination of his competitor."

The competitor came forward and proved exactly four generations
of nobility himself. So there was a tie in military qualifications
that far.

He stood aside a moment, and Sir Pertipole was questioned further:

"Of what condition was the wife of the founder of your line?"

"She came of the highest landed gentry, yet she was not noble;
she was gracious and pure and charitable, of a blameless life and
character, insomuch that in these regards was she peer of the
best lady in the land."

"That will do. Stand down." He called up the competing lordling
again, and asked: "What was the rank and condition of the
great-grandmother who conferred British nobility upon your
great house?"

"She was a king's leman and did climb to that splendid eminence
by her own unholpen merit from the sewer where she was born."

"Ah, this, indeed, is true nobility, this is the right and perfect
intermixture. The lieutenancy is yours, fair lord. Hold it not in
contempt; it is the humble step which will lead to grandeurs more
worthy of the splendor of an origin like to thine."

I was down in the bottomless pit of humiliation. I had promised
myself an easy and zenith-scouring triumph, and this was the outcome!

I was almost ashamed to look my poor disappointed cadet in the
face. I told him to go home and be patient, this wasn't the end.

I had a private audience with the king, and made a proposition.
I said it was quite right to officer that regiment with nobilities,
and