livery, but the
three friends who accompanied him were tall men in pepper-and-salt
undress jackets with a duke's coronet on their buttons.

After tapping me on the back, and when he had finished his cheroot,
the gentleman produced another wind-instrument, which he called a
"kinopium," a sort of trumpet, on which he showed a great inclination
to play. He began puffing out of the "kinopium" a most abominable
air, which he said was the "Duke's March." It was played by particular
request of one of the pepper-and-salt gentry.

The noise was so abominable that even the coachman objected (although
my friend's brother footmen were ravished with it), and said that it
was not allowed to play toons on HIS 'bus. "Very well," said the valet,
"WE'RE ONLY OF THE DUKE OF B----'S ESTABLISHMENT, THAT'S ALL." The
coachman could not resist that appeal to his fashionable feelings. The
valet was allowed to play his infernal kinopium, and the poor fellow
(the coachman), who had lived in some private families, was quite
anxious to conciliate the footmen "of the Duke of B.'s establishment,
that's all," and told several stories of his having been groom in
Captain Hoskins's family, NEPHEW OF GOVERNOR HOSKINS; which stories the
footmen received with great contempt.

The footmen were like the rest of the fashionable world in this
respect. I felt for my part that I respected them. They were in daily
communication with a duke! They were not the rose, but they had lived
beside it. There is an odor in the English aristocracy which intoxicates
plebeians. I am sure that any commoner in England, though he would die
rather than confess it, would have a respect for those great big hulking
Duke's footmen.

The day before, her Grace the Duchess had passed us alone in a
chariot-and-four with two outriders. What better mark of innate
superiority could man want? Here was a slim lady who required four--six
horses to herself, and four servants (kinopium was, no doubt, one of the
number) to guard her.

We were sixteen inside and out, and had consequently an eighth of a
horse apiece.

A duchess = 6, a commoner = 1/8; that is to say,

1 duchess = 48 commoners.

If I were a duchess of the present day, I would say to the duke my noble
husband, "My dearest grace, I think, when I travel alone in my chariot
from Hammersmith to London, I will not care for the outriders. In these
days, when there is so much poverty and so much disaffection in the
country, we sho