Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/179

Rh man who has just been created High Sheriff. He made his money in mines. One of those present said that those fellows who scramble into society for which they are not qualified always reminded him of French poodles, half-shaven and half-savage; every one laughed and the laugh cut me like knives. I am sure several at the table thought of me, and that they have taken to calling me 'the French poodle.' What am I? I am either his lordship's legitimate but unacknowledged son—and if so I am shaved all over; but if I am as he would pretend, his bastard—I am half-shaved, and so half-shaved I must run about the world, laughed at, thought monstrous, pitied, a creature of aristocratic and plebeian origin commingled, with the hair about my neck, and ears, and eyes, and nose, but all the rest of me polished and cultured. A poodle indeed! I—a French poodle!"

A piece of decayed branch fallen from a tree lay in the road. Jingles kicked it away.

"That," said he passionately, "is what I should like to do to the butler, were I the Honourable Giles. And that," he kicked another stick, "is how I would treat that brute who allowed me to wait for my waistcoat. And so," he trod on and snapped a twig that lay athwart his path, "so would I crush the footman who dared to nudge me with the curried prawns! And," he caught a hazel bough that hung from the hedge, and broke it off, and ripped the leaves away, and then with his teeth pulled the rind away, "and this is what I would do to that man who dared to talk of half-shaved French poodles. Oh! if I could be but a despot—a dictator for an hour—for an hour only—to ram the curried prawns down the throat of that insolent ruffian who nudged me, and to flay alive that creature who spoke of poodles! Then I would cheerfully surrender my power into the hands of the people and be the democratic leader once more."