ETIES.

It is not surprising that, in his new station, "Cobbler" Horn should have
committed an occasional breach of etiquette. It was unlikely that he would
ever be guilty of real impropriety; but it was inevitable that he should,
now and again, set at nought the so-called "proprieties" of fashionable
life. In the genuine sense of the word, "Cobbler" Horn was a Christian
gentleman; and he would have sustained the character in any position in
which he might have been placed. But he had a feeling akin to contempt for
the punctilious and conventional squeamishness of polite society.

It was, no doubt, largely for this reason that "society" did not receive
"the Golden Shoemaker" within its sacred enclosure. Not that it rejected
him. He had too much money for that; half his wealth would have procured
him the entree to the most select circles. But the attitude he assumed
towards the fashionable world rendered impossible his admission to its
charmed precincts. He made it evident that he would not, and could not,
conform to its customs or observe its rules. The world, indeed, courted
him, at first, and would gladly have taken him within its arms. Fashion
set to work to woo him, as it would have wooed an ogre possessed of his
glittering credentials. But he repelled its advances with an amused
indifference verging on contempt.

"Cobbler" Horn foiled, by dint of sheer unresponsiveness, the first
attempt to introduce itself to him made by the world. On his return from
America, one of the first things which attracted his attention was a pile
of visiting cards on a silver salver which stood on the hall table. Some
of these bore the most distinguished names which Cottonborough or its
vicinity could boast. There were municipal personages of the utmost
dignity, and the representatives of county families of the first water. It
had taken the world some little time to awake to a sense of its "duty"
with regard to the "Cobbler" who had suddenly acceded to so high a
position in the aristocracy of wealth. But when, at length, it realized
that "the Golden Shoemaker" was indeed a fact, it set itself to bestow
upon him as full and free a recognition as though the blood in his veins
had been of the most immaculate blue.

It was during his absence in America that the great rush of the
fashionable world to his door had actually set in. But Miss Jemima had
not been taken unawares. She had supplied herself betimes with a manual
of etiquette, whi