asure, the rewards of your
enterprise? Will you leave Sevenoaks howling in pain? Will you leave
these scurvy ministers to whine for their salaries and whine to empty
air? Ye fresh fields and pastures new, I yield, I go, I reside! I spurn
the dust of Sevenoaks from my feet. I hail the glories of the distant
mart. I make my bow to you, sir. You ask my pardon? It is well! Go!"

The next morning, after a long examination of his affairs, in conference
with his confidential agent, and the announcement to Mrs. Belcher that
he was about to start for New York on business, Phipps took him and his
trunk on a drive of twenty miles, to the northern terminus of a railroad
line which, with his connections, would bear him to the city of his
hopes.

It is astonishing how much room a richly dressed snob can occupy in a
railway car without receiving a request to occupy less, or endangering
the welfare of his arrogant eyes. Mr. Belcher occupied always two seats,
and usually four. It was pitiful to see feeble women look at his
abounding supply, then look at him, and then pass on. It was pitiful to
see humbly dressed men do the same. It was pitiful to see gentlemen put
themselves to inconvenience rather than dispute with him his right to
all the space he could cover with his luggage and his feet. Mr. Belcher
watched all these exhibitions with supreme satisfaction. They were a
tribute to his commanding personal appearance. Even the conductors
recognized the manner of man with whom they had to deal, and shunned
him. He not only got the worth of his money in his ride, but the worth
of the money of several other people.

Arriving at New York, he went directly to the Astor, then the leading
hotel of the city. The clerk not only knew the kind of man who stood
before him recording his name, but he knew him; and while he assigned to
his betters, men and women, rooms at the top of the house, Mr. Belcher
secured, without difficulty, a parlor and bedroom on the second floor.
The arrogant snob was not only at a premium on the railway train, but at
the hotel. When he swaggered into the dining-room, the head waiter took
his measure instinctively, and placed him as a figure-head at the top of
the hall, where he easily won to himself the most careful and obsequious
service, the choicest viands, and a large degree of quiet observation
from the curious guests. In the office, waiters ran for him, hackmen
took off their hats to him, his cards were delivered w